


Captain America: The Lines Like Dust

by Legume_Shadow



Series: Captain America: In the Line of Duty (Series) [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky-centric and Peggy-centric, Gen, Inspired by Captain America: Theater of War, Inspired by Captain America: Winter Soldier: Issue #5, Inspired by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Peggy is in the Field and Not Behind a Desk, Period-Typical Attitudes Towards Everything, Questionable Morals Abound, Shaping the Once and Future Winter Soldier, Spycraft, Super-Soldiers Ass-Kicking Like There's No Tomorrow, Superhero Thriller Spycraft (Hopefully), War is hell, grey morality, so much spycraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-11-15 07:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18068864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legume_Shadow/pseuds/Legume_Shadow
Summary: A mission to clear a HYDRA outpost goes horribly wrong, separating Steve and Bucky from the rest of the Commandos. Stuck behind enemy lines, the two will need every single ounce of luck, wit, and skills at their disposal to make it through the heart of the enemy's territory.Note: Readers technically do not have to read any other fics in the series, though minor references are made to Story 2: In the Line of Duty.  This fic just enhances the series.





	1. The Snow Like Glass

**Author's Note:**

> First Publishing: March 2019, AO3  
> Disclaimer: All characters (except for the ones created by me) belong to their respective owners. No profit is being made from this work of fiction.
> 
> Theme Music: 'Damage Control' by Ninja Tracks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A smattering of German and Russian are said by various people in this fic. Rather than outright write out the sentences that they speak in the languages themselves, I've used the comic book convention of <>, for foreign languages, to make readability and understanding of the plot easier for English-based readers. However, that doesn't mean all the characters whom they speak to, will understand either language.

**Chapter 1: The Snow Like Glass**

_August 1944, HYDRA facility somewhere in Estonia..._

 

Bucky shivered.

It was enough to let him know that he was still alive, even though his world, his conscious thoughts, and everything that he could feel, felt like he was on fire. Agonizing jolts of pain lanced up and down his muscles, sharpening to acute stabs that seemed to wake him up even further. There was a jangling sound that seemed to ring a little too loudly in his ears as he felt a chill pass over him; his body involuntarily shivering yet again.

As he slowly, painfully opened his eyes, his world became less dark, less blurry, and sharper with each excruciatingly painful breath that he took. Sharper edges became more prominent, relief of stone, and what little light streamed through into where he was, greeted his sight. However, as he looked around, his eyes became riveted to what he saw a few feet away from him, towards his left.

Steve was chained to a chair; hands seemingly bound tightly behind him. Thick bands of silver-black chains wrapped around Steve's body several times, with even more strapping his legs to the legs of the chair. The chair itself was chained to the wall on a leash that looked to be taut.

Steve's head was hung down, hair ratty and matted with a few patches of blood stuck to the crown of his head. Bucky could see mottled bruises covering Steve's face. It was interspersed with split skin that was healing over scabs and dribbles of blood.

However bad Steve looked, Bucky felt worse, as he involuntarily shivered yet again, jangling the chains he was bound to. His arms had already gone somewhat numb, and his boot-covered feet barely dragged against the floor, providing little relief. He was naked from the waist up; his captors having just barely enough decency to keep him clothed from waist down and prevent him from freezing to death in a faster manner. Though the chill surrounding him was intolerable, it was just enough for him to feel lancing pain shoot up and down his body.

The noise made by his movements seemed to be loud enough to wake Steve up, as Bucky blearily saw him raise his head, blinking. “Bucky?” he heard Steve croak out.

“Y-yeah?” he huffed out; it still hurt to breathe, much less talk at the moment.

“I'm sorry...” Steve began. “I shouldn't... I shouldn't have—”

“N-not your f-fault, p-punk,” he said, with the chill he felt coursing through him caused him to stutter almost every single word. He couldn't even control the involuntary shaking of his body from being so cold. “R-remember... w-with you, until t-the end...”

Silence answered him, and for a moment, Bucky wondered if Steve had passed out again, as he saw him bow his head down to his chest. That silence was broken though, as he heard the faint movement of the chains around Steve shifting. Moments later, Steve lifted his head again, and rather than remorse and worry, Bucky saw absolute determination in those blue-green eyes.

“We're going to get through this,” Steve said, as Bucky saw him strain against the chains – chair and all. “Just hold on, Buck. Hold on. I'm going to get you free—”

The sound of Steve exerting every ounce of his enhanced strength against the chains binding him echoed in the cavernous cell, but after a few long minutes, it seemed it was all for naught. None of the chains around Steve budged more than an inch. Whatever those chains were made out of, they were impossibly strong enough to hold Steve to where he was.

“It's... it's a-alright S-Steve,” Bucky stuttered slightly, drawing and hissing at the same time as another violent chill passed through him. It exacerbated and inflamed the acute pain he felt. “We'll—”

He didn't get to finish his reassurance to Steve, as the cell door – a wooden door reinforced with iron bars – opened. A man dressed head-to-toe in all black with what looked like an executioner's hood, walked in, fiddling with a ring on his finger of all things. The man was followed by HYDRA officer who wore a black variant of the Nazi uniform. The two stopped in front of him.

Bucky drew in a shaky breath, even though it was painful for him to, as his eyes immediately fell from the two men and onto the whip that the HYDRA officer carried with him. Other HYDRA soldiers had punched him with their gloved fists, beaten him earlier with tools, or kicked him with their booted feet. The welts and bruises that the others had left would heal, but this... scars from being whipped—

“Leave him alone! Don't you dare touch him!” Steve shouted, straining against the chains once again.

“Will this work, Doctor?” Bucky read the lips of the HYDRA officer holding the whip, as Steve's yelling drowned out anything that could be heard by him.

The question had been asked in English, and he knew that it was designed to continue to spread fear in him – and continue to anger Steve. Whether the mysteriously black-clad person said anything in return or not, all Bucky saw was the continued twisting of the ring on the finger.

A moment later, the HYDRA officer stepped back and unfurled the whip, drawing his arm back. The other person stayed where he was, but Bucky was no longer staring at him or the strange, almost hypnotic movement of the ring on the man's finger. His eyes had focused onto the HYDRA officer, and the long snake-like movement of the whip flying towards him—

* * *

_Earlier..._

 

“Nervous, Carter?” Bucky asked, nearly shouting his words over the roar of airplane engine and open door that was ready for them to jump out of. It was Stark's airplane that was carrying them to the drop zones.

“Hardly, Sergeant,” Peggy answered. Bucky glanced down the line of either side of the airplane and saw the rest of his fellow Commandos grinning at Peggy's confident words. “This is not my first time jumping out of an airplane.”

“Oh, really?” he asked, as a couple of the Commandos also looked as surprised as he did.

Unfortunately, she didn't get a chance to elaborate on when exactly was the last time – or how many times for the matter – she had jumped out of an airplane, as Steve returned from his brief talk with Howard in the cockpit. “Time to go?” Bucky asked, as it looked like Steve was not going to sit down again.

“Jump in thirty seconds,” Steve answered.

Bucky got up and did a brief check on Steve's chute, straps, and accouterments. Once verified to be secured and ready, he double-tapped Steve on the side of his right arm – the signal for 'ready'. Pinkerton had done the same to him, though the former detective-turned-soldier sat down after the verification and signal. Bucky then followed Steve to the edge of the open fuselage door.

“Night jumps are the best,” Peggy leaned over slightly and shouted to both of them. “I'll tell you the story when both of you return.”

“Okay!” Steve answered, even though Bucky knew that his best friend had no idea why Peggy was describing night jumps out of an airplane as being the best. Bucky knew that it was an indirect way of telling them – Steve especially – to return safe and sound.

“Good hunting—” Peggy began just as the light next to the door turned from red to green.

At nearly the same time, anti-aircraft rounds began peppering the skies all around them, drowning out whatever else Peggy was going to say. The airplane rocked, but a second later, Steve was already leaping out of the airplane, and Bucky quickly followed.

Pulling the chute as soon as he counted the seconds past clear, his fall down to the earth jerked to a halt. He turned ever so slightly towards his right to look beyond where Steve was floating down near him, to see Howard turning the airplane around to get out of the dangerous airspace. The distraction and drop had been successful; he and Steve were the distraction, dropping into the heart of enemy territory. They were not going to assault the HYDRA facility by themselves though – a Soviet strike team was already in place, waiting for them at the rendezvous site.

The rest of the Commandos, along with Peggy, were going to drop in a relatively safer zone. Their job was to infiltrate the HYDRA facility and find as much information as possible about what was waiting for the Soviet battalion just outside of Kronas and possibly elsewhere in the region. The Soviets needed to take Kronas and a few other towns after that, in order to help the rest of their countrymen secure Narva.

It had not been local intelligence that had caused the SSR to get involved with the messy and bloody aftermath of the start of the Leningrad-Novgorod Offensive. Rather, it had been the unusual report of a fierce August blizzard whipping up and covering the entire region in less than six hours, that had drawn the attention of the SSR. What little information they could get from the region pointed to a possible HYDRA base somewhere in the region, along with a supposed super-weapon unlike anything that had been seen before.

Even with the bone-chilling cold and heavy winter snow in the middle of summer upon them, along with the reputation of the Soviets successfully starving and driving out Nazi and Nazi-allied forces in Operation Uranus, there was only so much a regular army could do against HYDRA.

Because of the scarcity of information, along with a possibility that the Soviet offensives could grind to a halt because of the rumored weapon, Colonel Philips had personally set up a temporary command base in the field. The forward command base and its skeleton crew of personnel, were a good few miles and safely away from the facility that the Commandos and Soviet strike team were about to invade.

Bucky grimly smiled and focused back on the landing – especially since the dense forest and the snow-topped trees made it extremely difficult to land without possibly ripping the chute or cords apart. Whatever this HYDRA facility was, whatever information it was trying to hide, it would not be successful – not against the Howling Commandos backed by an elite Soviet strike team.

* * *

_Present, at the temporary SSR Field Headquarters..._

 

“You tell that son-of-a—”

“Dugan!” Peggy admonished sharply, even though he was saying the words she desperately wanted to translate directly into the faces of the Soviet battalion commander and his adjutants.

“Lieutenant Dugan, take a walk,” Philips ordered, as Peggy folded her arms across her chest and shook her head slightly. She saw the bowler-hat wearing Commando glare at the commander of the battalion one last time before leaving, muttering under his breath. Most of the other Commandos, left with Dugan, but only Major Falsworth remained; still silent but standing now with his arms folded across his chest.

As soon as the flap to the tent closed, Philips returned his attention to the commander, saying, “I apologize for the rudeness of my men. I hope that you will be able to put it aside, as we have many more things to discuss with what we have found.”

Peggy dutifully translated Philips' words into Russian, and watched as the commander nodded before gesturing to the map. It was a laborious process, translating what she and the other Commandos had found in the HYDRA facility, as none of the materials had been written in English. What little they had brought back after being discovered and nearly overwhelmed by HYDRA forces, was written primarily in German with a few Russian documents thrown in .

Emily Hattersfield and Darin Townsend, the two code-breakers and analysts who had been hand-picked by her to be here, were still working on translating and decoding the German materials, which had been under a different cipher than what governed the German Enigma machines. Peggy had decoded most of the Russian documents, since she was the only one out of the three who knew Russian, though she was not completely fluent. Emily and Darin knew German better than she did – Emily especially was fluent enough to be considered native. The young woman was able to speak with the various accents and dialects of the German language.

At the present though, the Russian documents was what she, along with Philips were presenting to the commander and his adjutants. As she translated Philips words and the Russian commander's answers – back and forth – she couldn't help but allow her eyes to stray across the map to where a 'H' flag had been pinned against the map. It was situated in the middle of the dense forest. She had to keep the worry from her expression and her voice though; as she wanted to go with the Howling Commandos right at the moment and back to where the 'H' flag was.

Steve and Bucky had been captured during their diversion assault on the base. It had only been though the lone survivor of the elite Soviet strike team that the Soviet commander had sent to assist the two, that she along with Philips and the others, had found out what had happened. After HYDRA had discovered Peggy and the other Commandos sneaking around, and had driven them away with sheer overwhelming force, she could only assume that HYDRA had turned to do the same to Steve and the Soviet soldiers.

The lone survivor was currently being tended to in the small medical tent within the field headquarters. However, Peggy had seen that his fellow soldiers had wanted to bring the young man back to their camps that dotted the perimeter. It wasn't that the Soviets didn't trust the SSR as much as the SSR could trust the Soviets – it was that the two forces were only working together because of mutual circumstances.

Thus far, the SSR had been able to prevent most of HYDRA's weaponry and machinations from being spread into and throughout the European front. Destroying several bases and production facilities certainly helped, but Peggy knew that it was mainly because the 107th were everywhere in Europe. The 107th had struck at so many HYDRA targets all at once that it was enough to force Schmidt to focus solely on fighting them, instead of attempting to take over the world.

Now, there was a weapon that none of their intelligence feelers, field agents, and informants had picked up – and it was threatening to halt the forward march of a somewhat ally of the Allies. Peggy felt that what little information they had found about Kronas had not been worth the fact that Steve and Bucky had been captured – nor was it worth the massacre of an elite Soviet strike team.

It was about an hour later, after the information had finally been passed on, that the battalion commander asked for a brief few minutes to confer with his adjutants alone. Philips granted the request, and held his arm out for Peggy and Falsworth to leave before he did.

Outside, and before Peggy could get a word in after the tent flap had closed, Philips turned to both of them, saying, “Whatever you're going to say, Carter, save it. You as well, Falsworth. I'm in no mood to be entertaining the notion of a rescue mission, not until the Soviets give me their answers.”

“Sir—” Falsworth began, but then shut his mouth, wisely not saying another word in response to the glare that Philips had thrown him.

Philips walked away, but even before he was out of earshot, Falsworth had turned to Peggy, saying, “We'll get him back; we'll get both of them back, Peggy.”

“I know,” she answered, as she allowed him to guide her away from the tent and to where the other Commandos were, sitting around a campfire to keep the cold and light snow storm at bay. “It's just,” she began, sitting down next to DumDum, while Falsworth took the empty spot on the log next to her, “Colonel Philips is right – we're going to need help assaulting that facility.”

“So we do it without the Russkies' help,” DumDum said, handing her a tin mug of coffee. “We get on the horn, let Simon and Chavez's teams know we need their help, and wait for them to get here. I mean, I think they're the closest teams to where we are.”

“They're needed where they are,” Peggy stated, shaking her head before taking a sip of the coffee, letting the hot liquid warm her up. “And we don't have replacements to fill in their spots.”

“Philips' request got denied by the top brass again?” Morita asked, frowning slightly.

“Well, I wouldn't even put someone that green in Simon or Chavez's deployment area,” Falsworth commented.

“Goddammit,” Peggy heard DumDum whisper in frustration. “How the hell did such a facility not show up on any of the reports? Especially with such an overwhelming amount of HYDRA soldiers swarming it?”

“Whatever the facility is, besides providing us with what's in Kronas, it must have been important enough that only Schmidt knew about it,” Peggy surmised, rolling the tin cup between her gloved hands.

She fell silent and looked at the swirling dark brown liquid within the cup for a few long minutes, watching the snowflakes melt into it as they fell. She knew that Philips was correct to not entertain a rescue, and she knew that she could not ask Howard to fly the Commandos and her back into the area – not without serious consequences. This was not like when Steve had dropped into Azzano to get the 107th and other prisoners out; this was a facility that had more HYDRA soldiers than anything the Commandos had encountered before.

Azzano had worked because of the advantage of surprise, and the fact that they had more prisoners held there than there were guards or soldiers in the facility. They had neither here, and the Allies' super-soldier was a captive held behind enemy lines. None of them knew if Steve was gravelly injured or not, or if even him or Bucky were still alive. All she and the others had known was from the lone survivor: that Steve and Bucky had been captured, and that the Soviet strike team had been massacred.

Peggy knew that the Soviets were wanting to push into Kronas and the town's surroundings before the advantage they had over HYDRA was lost. The Commandos' help to subdue and destroy the possible HYDRA super-weapon in Kronas was needed. There was also a good possibility that the HYDRA forces within the facility would have begun to move towards Kronas or other towns – and again, the Commandos were needed to help fight against that.

It was a hopeless situation to Peggy. At the moment, all she wanted to do was not cry, but to go find and rescue Steve. Yet, she heard his voice inside of her; the willingness to sacrifice something personal for the greater good. She knew that if he were in her shoes at the moment, he would have focused on making sure the HYDRA super-weapon was no longer a threat to the Soviets or Allied forces – not go off on a half-baked rescue mission with almost no chance of success.

All she could do at the moment was hope and pray that Steve survived – that both he and Bucky survived – until they could go rescue them.

* * *

_HYDRA facility..._

 

The whip had left him unmarked.

It was the first thing Bucky had noticed as soon as he had jolted awake to the clinking sounds of Steve shifting ever so slightly within his chain-bound chair to the wall. His own screams of pain, mingling in with Steve's anguished bellows for the HYDRA officer to stop torturing him, still rang in a ghostly manner in his ears. Bucky own sudden movement caused louder jangling sounds that accompanied a fresh wave of pain shooting all over his body before it dulled to an ache.

He wondered just how long he had been out. It seemed that it had been long enough for his older bruises to begin to fade as the open and split wounds on him had also begun knitting themselves together again.

The noise was enough to startle Steve awake as well, as Bucky saw him blink several times before suddenly look up at him. “Bucky—!” Steve began.

Bucky saw confusion spread across Steve's face. He shook his head at his best friend, finding the movement not as painful as it had overwhelmingly been before. Neither of them could figure out just what had happened after the HYDRA officer had flung the whip at him. Bucky had _felt_ the acute searing pain of the whip cutting into and through him several times until he had blacked out.

Now, there was nothing. No red welt or mark on his body, his shoulders, or even cutting into the trousers he wore. All he felt was the bone-numbing chill continuing to crawl up and down his body, along with the dull, persistent ache of pain from his somewhat healed wounds.

What _had_ he felt, and what had Steve seen?

“What... the hell?” he heard Steve whisper, seemingly unable to say his words any louder. Bucky could only guess that Steve had screamed for them to stop until he could scream no more.

“T-that ring?” Bucky hoarsely suggested, feeling a rawness within his throat that Zola's super-soldier serum had not yet healed. He could only surmise that whatever he and Steve had been through with the all-covered man and the HYDRA officer had to do something with the strange ring.

Neither of them said anything any further as the cell door opened again. This time, four HYDRA soldiers wearing the usual black outfits, sans helmets, walked in. Bucky did not like the smiles on their faces, nor the gleam in their eyes.

“< _Should we let Captain America watch, or blind fold him and just let him hear the screams?_ >” one of the HYDRA soldiers asked in German, sauntering over to where Steve was while swinging a long piece of black cloth in his hands.

“< _Let him watch. Let the bastard feel even more helpless than he is now._ >” another answered.

“< _Watch it is._ >” the HYDRA soldier standing next to Steve said, before suddenly pushing Steve and the chair he was bound to, over. Because of how it was chained to the wall, Steve didn't fall, but rather he was tipped over just enough that the chair – and Steve – was balanced on the two left legs. Derisive laughter filled the air.

“Hey!” Bucky growled, forcing the rawness that he felt in his throat as far away as he could.

If there was one thing that he _did not_ want to hear ever again, it was Steve howling in pain. The sound had been excruciating to Bucky's ears, and all it had done was make him feel completely helpless in the hands of his captors.

The other three HYDRA soldiers slowly stopped laughing at Steve's predicament with Bucky's exclamation. He still did not like the cruel smiles on their faces as all four of them turned their attention fully onto him and surrounded him in a semi-circle, nearly blocking his view of Steve.

“< _Lower the chains on him. None of us can reach with him strung up like plucked chicken._ >” the soldier to Bucky's left said, nodding to the one on his right.

“Don't touch him—” he heard Steve begin, trying to yell his words.

One of the soldiers in front of him abruptly turned and closed the distance to Steve. A wad of cloth was stuffed into Steve's mouth before the black cloth that was supposed to have been a blind fold was bound across. The soldier returned, just as Bucky saw the soldier on his right comply with the order.

Keys that the guard held clinked and clanged at each other, but Bucky wasn't paying too much attention to the noise. What had briefly caught his attention was the fact that the other soldier who had stood next to the one who had gagged Steve, was now standing behind him, having pushed him slightly forward. The hungry, menacing look on that soldier's face made him uneasy, more than it made him angry.

The chains holding him to the wall was slackened so quickly that Bucky didn't even have the strength to keep himself on his feet. He collapsed onto the ground, but just as he fell into a heap, the chains were pulled taut again. What blood had come rushing back through his arms, sending a wave of pins and needles through him, was enough for him to react and twist his wrists around both of the chains, grabbing the chains with his hands.

The chains were plain iron.

HYDRA had chained him in simple irons. These soldiers in the facility did not know that he had been augmented by Zola – they did not know that he had as much strength as Steve had with his Erskine-based super-soldier serum. Whereas they bound Steve in some sort of chain that didn't seem to be made of iron, they had thought of him – Bucky – as a simple soldier of the 107th.

“< _Look at that, he's bracing himself. I think he knows what's coming._ >” one of the soldiers taunted.

“< _I shall enjoy hearing him scream like the whores up river._ >” another viciously and gleefully stated, causing the others to briefly laugh.

Bucky didn't even get a chance to pick himself up off the floor, as one of the soldiers' meaty hands grabbed him by his hair and yanked him up to his knees. He didn't dare make a sound of pain – it was nothing compared to the beatings he had suffered through earlier. Instead, he glared, putting as much anger, venom, and malice he could into it.

The sounds of what seemed like clothing rustling from the soldier behind him, followed by the more clearer sounds of a belt being unbuckled, alarmed Bucky. However, he managed to keep it from showing on his face as he continued to focus, to glare at the other three in front of him – one of whom was still grasping him by his hair.

He heard more clothes being rustled behind him, but it was when he felt a too-warm hand press on the back edge of his trousers and bare skin, he acted. Using every single ounce of what strength he had, never mind that pins and needles still crawled up his arm, Bucky _pulled_ at the iron chains in his hands.

The popping and pinging sound coming from above all of them caused the soldiers to pause for a moment before they could get far enough in their physical assault upon him. It didn't last long, as Bucky continued to pull and with one last effort, finally yanked both chains out of the walls.

The soldiers didn't even get to finish their expletives in German as stone and sharp spikes of iron that held the chains and loops to the wall came flying down. It was half-luck, and half-anger that Bucky had deliberately yanked the ends of the chains in both of his hands directly into the soldier who had tipped Steve's chair over.

Dead from being stabbed by the spiked ends of the chains, Bucky lashed out, kicking and sweeping his foot to the right to down the second soldier. For the third soldier, he was already yanking the chains out and threw the end on his right hand out towards the third soldier – who was scrambling away. The chain wrapped twice around the soldier's neck, and Bucky pulled – hard.

The snap of bones echoed in the cavernous cell, as he took the spiked end of the chain on his left hand and stabbed it into heart of the second soldier on the ground in front of him. Ignoring the flecks of blood that sprayed up, he pulled the spike back out and turned to face the final soldier.

The soldier – naked from the waist down – hadn't even moved to run from where he had been when Bucky had freed himself. Instead, all the soldier had done was slide down against the wall to sit dumbly on the ground, with his uniform's pants pooling at his ankles. The soldier was staring at him wide eyed with fear, and was muttering something in German that Bucky could not catch.

Instead of killing the man right then and there, Bucky coolly closed the distance and crouched in front of the soldier. He deliberately glanced down, staring at the soldier's manhood, before looking back up, while bringing his right hand that held that chain's spiked end to hover over it. Sweat broke out over the HYDRA soldier's face.

“I don't appreciate being assaulted,” he growled. “Especially by a pig like you. Neither did those women up river, or anyone else you've touched with your filthy hands, you fucking snake.”

“S-sorry,” the soldier stated in a heavily accented English, sweating profusely as Bucky saw his eyes follow his right hand holding the spike. He deliberately lowered his hand a few inches, watching those fearful eyes of the soldier move some more.

“Not fucking sorry enough, asshole,” he hissed, and slowly slashed across the soldier's neck with the spike in his left hand.

Blood began to dribble out of the wound, with the soldier trying to stymie it with his hands. By the time it started to gush, Bucky had already turned and stood back up, ignoring the dying clawing attempt by the half-naked soldier. It took some effort, since his strength was nearly gone with what he had done in a matter of seconds to the four soldiers, but he managed to get the irons binding his wrists off of him as he walked away.

As the clanking sounds of the chains fell to the floor, Bucky looked around for the keys that had been dropped. He deliberately avoided looking at Steve, as he found the keys a little ways away from where the guard who had had his neck snapped by the chains, had fell down dead. Picking the keys up, he made his way over and crouched next to Steve, tipping him back up. It was only then, that Bucky finally looked over at him.

Understanding and relief, not anger, shone through Steve's eyes.

“Come on. Let's get you free,” he murmured turning away from those mesmerizing blue-green eyes of Steve's. He untied the gag over Steve's mouth and yanking the wad of cloth out. As Steve coughed and took a few deep breaths, Bucky was already searching for the chain lock around the chair.

“Are you all right, Bucky?” Steve quietly, but still hoarsely asked, as Bucky found the tiny but strong lock that held the chains together, and began to test the various keys out on it.

There was so much weight, so much concern that radiated through that simple question. Bucky knew that Steve was not just asking about what had happened in the fight, but before that – and what had happened to him since they had been captured. His body still ached, but the adrenaline running through him had pushed most of the pain away.

He remained silent as the second to last key in the ring turned out to be the one that broke the lock. Quickly setting it and keys down, he unwound the chains around Steve, as Steve shook himself loose and stood up. Standing back up, he took a step towards the door to their cell, but it was Steve gently grabbing his right arm that stopped him for a moment.

“Bucky, at least strip that soldier over there of his shirt. You're going to freeze to death if you don't put something on,” Steve said, gesturing with with his chin towards the soldier whose neck had been snapped. “I'll recon.”

“Y-yeah,” he answered, feeling his instincts to fight die a little, as he realized that Steve was not going to keep pestering him about if he was all right or not.

Bucky knew that he wasn't, but they needed to escape first. He had to push aside whatever ill-hell he felt about that attempted assault – to the side. It hadn't happened; it had only gotten as far as that jackbooted HYDRA thug pulling down his own trousers, not Bucky's. It hadn't happened to him, but it had happened to others before him – others who could not defend themselves.

The four soldiers in the cell deserved to be killed in the manner that they had been killed by his hand; no more, no less.

* * *

_SSR Field Headquarters..._

 

“We appreciate the information that you have recovered, Colonel Philips. Given the necessity of surprise, we have elected to push forward in the assault on Kronas,” Peggy translated.

Peggy saw Philips nod in affirmation at the Soviet battalion commander before saying, “The Howling Commandos will be supporting your men. What time do you intend to launch it?”

She translated the words, before glancing over at Falsworth, who was standing at the corner of the table, studying the map. The Englishman looked up, catching her eyes, but she couldn't read him at the moment. At the answer that the battalion commander gave, Peggy returned her attention to Philips and said, “He says dawn, sir.”

“You have a go, Major,” Philips stated, turning his attention to Falsworth. “You're in charge of the Commandos. Brief them on what was discussed here, and request whatever you need from Stark. If that weapon exists and is in Kronas, it must be destroyed at all costs.”

“Yes, sir,” Falsworth stated, nodding, though Peggy could see a reluctance to assume leadership of the Howling Commandos weighing upon him. “And after we've destroyed the weapon, sir?”

Peggy knew that the Englishman was waiting for Philips to give them a go on getting back to the HYDRA base to go rescue Steve and Bucky. Yet the affirmation did not come as Philips shook his head, saying, “One battle at a time, Major. We can't have HYDRA potentially escaping with the weapon.”

“Understood, sir,” Falsworth reluctantly answered, as Peggy caught his eyes on her again, apologetic.

There was nothing else she could say, or even do at the moment – not when the SSR had committed themselves to neutralizing the greater threat. No one knew how long it would take to drive out the enemy forces in Kronas, or what else would be waiting for them besides the slim intelligence they had picked up. Steve and Bucky – if they were still alive – would have to find a way to escape on their own.

* * *

_HYDRA Facility..._

 

For an HYDRA facility, the fact that they were sneaking through the halls of a stone castle, was a little eerie and a little frustrating. The eerie part stemmed mainly from the fact that since they escaped their cell, neither he nor Steve had run into anyone. That had included HYDRA soldiers and scientists – at least Bucky presumed that there were scientists in this facility; the strange black-clad man with the equally strange ring on his finger not withstanding.

Bucky saw Steve suddenly hold up a fist to halt, before pressing himself against the right wall of the stone laced hall that they were traversing through. Though there were modern amenities like strung lights hanging across the ceiling, the tapestries, knights armors, and various portraits that they had passed in their traversal of the castle, made it feel more medieval and ancient.

He pressed himself up against the same wall, but did not peek out as he saw Steve turn his head slightly towards the adjacent hall on their right that intersected the one they were currently in. Exhaustion from torture and being so cold was catching up to him, as he had not heard anything coming down that hall. Briefly closing his eyes, he tried to summon the energy to continue – they were no longer in the cell; they had to escape, no matter what.

Steve's warm, weighty hand on his shoulder a few moments later had him opening his eyes and looking over to see Steve still pressed against the wall, but his head turned towards him. There was a silent question of worry in Steve's eyes, but he did not say a word. Bucky did not want to continue to worry Steve and nodded as best as he could in reassurance.

The sooner they escaped from this hell hole, the faster they could get back to safety and a place for him to recover.

Steve didn't look convinced by Bucky's nod, but lifted his hand from his shoulder a few moments later. Silent gestures to indicate the direction they were headed were given by hand signals, and Bucky acknowledged them with another nod of his head. A second later, they were on the move again – this time, down the hall adjacent to the right of where they had been.

About fifty feet later, it seemed that whatever hunch had been guiding Steve was right; the stone hall that sloped down ended into a more 'modern' looking facility. It seemed that an annex of sorts had been built adjacent to the castle. Bucky surmised that this must have been the 'kitchen shed' that he, along with Steve and the Soviet strike team had seen through their binoculars. This was where the Soviet strike team and the two of them had tried to hold the line against HYDRA.

There was still no sign of guards or otherwise as they paused at the first closed door they could find. Naturally, it was locked, but Bucky kept watch as Steve pressed his ear against the door, listening for any sign of anyone beyond and in the room. A few moments later, he saw him step back before putting a hand on the iron handle and pushed hard in an inward manner. The simple lock on the door broke with a small _crack_ , and Steve opened the door.

Bucky slipped inside after Steve, closing the door behind him. It was a room of sorts, that looked like it used to be a classroom. There was a desk near the door, with a coat stand in the corner. In the center of the room was a large table that held a diorama of what looked to be a miniature of the facility, the extremely thick forest that the facility was housed in, and the surrounding towns. Leaning against one of the legs of the table was Steve's shield. Bucky saw Steve make his way over to the model map, picking up the shield and slipping it into its usual place against his left arm.

Bucky headed over to the desk. Papers upon papers, folders, and various amounts of paraphernalia were strewn about the messy desk. As he rifled through the first few leaflet, hearing Steve do the same to whatever was lying on top of the model map, he couldn't help but frown. The first few pages were written all in Russian—

“Oh, God,” he heard Steve softly exclaim, and looked up to see him staring at a particular scrap of paper in his right hand, while his left hand hovered over the representation of Kronas.

“We gotta move, Buck,” Steve said, looking up at him, eyes wide with worry. “It's a trap at Kronas. They've planted mines deep underground from the center to a three kilometer radius beyond edge of the town. That super-weapon, it's real and they've got it rigged to blow with the mines.”

Bucky softly swore, but a faint, feminine voice calling out in German interrupted them. Both he and Steve turned towards the source of the voice, which sounded as if it was coming through the closed door on the other side of the room. Steve immediately put the papers he had been reading down, and approached.

The faint noise of a woman crying for help came again and Bucky saw Steve break the lock on the door much in the same manner that he had done to get into this room. Bucky was already stepping out from behind the desk and half-way to help Steve, when Steve turned back and waved him back down. “I'll get her free, Bucky. Go get the documents.”

Bucky nodded, and returned to the model map, collecting everything on the table as best as he could, together. It was all in German – most of it that he couldn't read, as he only understood German and couldn't speak it as well as Steve had grasped the language. It had been a brief moment of hilarity between the two of them when they had discovered that Steve had the same problem he had with German, except applied to Russian.

There originally had been no need for Steve to learn Russian as the SSR rarely ran into Soviet forces in the field, and there still really wasn't – not when Bucky was the one within the Commandos able to translate. Bucky did not mind translating the orders given back and forth, but since this whole debacle with a formerly undiscovered HYDRA base cropping up, he had been extremely conscious that he put an American accent into his Russian. No one, not even Steve, needed to know that the Russian he grew up with was strictly from Petrograd – or Leningrad as it was now known.

Bringing the documents back to the desk, he placed it on top of the pile of Russian documents he had found. He rummaged around the drawers of the desk, trying to find a briefcase of sorts, but settled on a satchel instead. Hauling and stuffing every single document, folder, and piece of paper he could find into the satchel, he hoped that he was not missing anything else as he took one last look around.

The German documents were their immediate concern, but the Russian ones worried him as well. He was no doctor, but there were a few words he had roughly translated from Russian that stood out when he had briefly skimmed the pages, namely: unconscious thought, manipulation, and subversive implantation. Whatever those words indicated, it was clear to him that it was something that the SSR should be made aware.

He looked up as the sounds of Steve and whomever he was breaking out from the other room, returned to this room. The woman that he was helping walk forward was wearing a dirtied white blouse with what looked like dark-colored bloomers for pants. As unkempt as she looked, she didn't look terribly injured and only seemingly shaken, given that Steve was not carrying her.

Bucky slung the satchel over his shoulder and stepped over to take the black trench coat with the HYDRA shoulder insignias off of the coat rack. It felt a little lopsided in terms of weight, but he quickly ripped the insignias off of it. Reaching into the left pocket, he fished out a Luger before walking the coat over to Steve and the woman.

Steve took the coat from him, but Bucky did not miss the slightly puzzled look that Steve gave him, as Steve draped the coat around the woman. He had noticed what Steve had seen: the woman, despite having smudges of dirt all over her face, looked incredibly similar to Lorraine. As unsettling as it was, it was only because they had more pressing issues to contend with that he did not say a word.

“T-thank you, s-sir,” the woman stated in halting and stuttering English that was heavily accented.

“I'll take point,” Bucky said, even though exhaustion was still nipping at him. He had to focus, as it was no longer just Steve and him trying to escape. Whatever or whomever HYDRA had captured or kept captive of this woman, they needed to keep her safe until they could get to safety.

“I...I worked...here,” the woman said, drawing the coat tighter around her as she looked up at him, eyes imploringly sad. There was some pain that Bucky could read, radiating through those blue eyes of hers, but she seemed to draw strength by the fact that Steve was standing protectively around her.

“S-school... governess to the c-children,” she continued.

“There are children held captive here?” Steve asked, drawing in a sharp breath as he looked in alarm at Bucky.

He knew what his friend was thinking about, as the same appalling thoughts had crossed his mind as well. The last time the Commandos had encountered children had been in a town near a HYDRA outpost; all had died from starvation or exposure before the Commandos had even gotten there.

“N-no,” the woman said, shaking her head slightly. “F-family...they escape before borders closed. I s-stay behind... lure.”

Bucky clenched his jaw tight for a moment as he briefly caught Steve's glance over at him, before Steve focused back on the woman. The woman had stayed behind to divert HYDRA or whatever Nazi forces' interest, allowing the family who had lived here to escape before they could be captured.

As disheartening of a story as it was, the fact that HYDRA had kept her here as a captive made it even worse. If those four dead soldiers in the cell were anything to speak of just how brutally hideous HYDRA was, especially of what they had tried to do to him, he could not imagine what they had _done_ to the woman.

“What is your name?” Steve gently asked.

“Marta,” the woman answered, looking at them anxiously.

“I'm Steve,” Steve said, pointing to himself. “And this is Bucky,” Steve continued, pointing at him. “We're going to escape Marta. We have friends and allies who can help you; reunite you with your family and get you away from here. Do you think you can be brave and escape with us?”

“Y-yes,” the woman answered, nodding, as she flicked her eyes over both of them. “Yes,” she answered after another moment in a stronger voice. “I-I know where t-they keep vehicles.”

“All right,” Steve said, as Bucky caught his nod towards him, and made his way to the door. He listened carefully, but could not hear anything beyond the door. Slowly, he opened the door, the Luger pointed in front of him and leading the way.

The hall was empty and he slipped out, hearing Steve and Marta follow behind him. “Take r-right at end,” Marta's murmur behind him was barely heard, but Bucky acknowledged it with a nod of his head.

Slowly and carefully, the three of them crept down the halls of the castle with Marta guiding them to where the vehicles were. They encountered no one until just before the final area that led out into the shed-like area where the vehicles were kept. It was the shadow cast by the lights in the shed, of a guard that caused Bucky to immediately lean back and press himself against the wall.

The guard walked by the entrance without incident, but Bucky dared not breathe out loud. As soon as the guard walked past, he counted five seconds before carefully peeking out.

There was no one else in the shed, but it was woefully bereft of any sizable vehicles that they could quickly make their escape with. Only a single motorcycle, along with another that had a sidecar attached to it were left in the shed. With what lights that had been strung up in the shed, it was clear to him that tracks on the dirt ground in and out of the shed indicated that there had been heavier vehicles parked in the shed. Bucky could only guess that the HYDRA forces that had been stationed here had moved out – most likely to intercept or ambush Soviet forces in Kronas.

He leaned back and handed Steve the Luger before making the appropriate hand signals. He got a single nod in return, and a worried look from Marta. Hoping to put her worry at ease, Bucky flashed her a confident smile before waiting another five seconds for the guard to return and pass by them again.

Silently slipping out, he crept up to the guard and swiftly pounced. Wrapping his hands around the guard's face from the back, he wrenched the guard's head to the side with a quick _pop_. The guard fell down dead, and Bucky stripped him of his weapons, skittering the rifle towards the entrance into the castle while taking the combat blade for himself.

As exhausted as he was, Bucky forced himself to listen carefully for any sounds of any other guards in the area. There was one directly above them, walking around the shed's rooftop. He needed to get rid of that guard.

He quickly slipped out of the shed, and climbed onto the rooftop of the shed. Bucky caught a glimpse of Steve slipping out with Marta, headed towards the motorcycle with the side car. It was Steve's job to make sure Marta was safe, as the two would be riding double on the motorcycle.

Pausing for a moment before he completely hauled himself up onto the rooftop, he waited for the second the guard on the shed's roof turned. He couldn't afford to be quiet as the three steps he took to close the distance between him and the second guard was noisy enough to alert the guard. However, the guard didn't get to even raise his rifle up or shout an alarm as the combat blade flew from Bucky's hand.

There was enough force behind his throw to pierce into and through both the helmet and skull of the guard's forehead. The guard clattered onto the rooftop in a heap, just as the low rumble of the motorcycle with the sidecar filled the air. Bucky wasted no time as he ran and snatched up the rifle, wrenching it from the dead body.

Just as Steve sped the motorcycle out of the shed, Bucky leapt and dropped directly into the empty side car. The rig wobbled slightly, but Steve compensated for the additional weight easily before continuing on, pushing the speed of the vehicle higher and higher. Marta was sitting in front of Steve, directly behind the shield that Steve had placed in front, acting like a metal windshield.

Shouts and alarms trailed after them, as Bucky turned and looked behind them for a moment. Up on the balconies of the castle, there were several HYDRA guards – those left behind, and they were already raising the alarm. Bucky couldn't do anything about them – not with the type of rifle he had, and certainly not with the speed that Steve was continuing to pour into the motorcycle.

“Brace!” was all the warning he got from Steve as he glanced back towards the front and immediately ducked.

They crashed through the bars that kept the road that led to the castle closed. Nevertheless, that became the least of their worries as the headlight from the motorcycle shined through the darkness and showed them what exactly was waiting for them. A company of HYDRA motorcycle riders, most likely the last of HYDRA's forces from the facility making their way to Kronas, were directly in front of them.

Bucky readied the rifle in his hands, but he knew that between what he and Steve carried, they did not have enough bullets to take out an entire company.

 

~*~*~*~

 


	2. The Shadows Like Fire

**Chapter 2: The Shadows Like Fire**

 

There was no room for elegance or precision head shots, not with just how fast they were going, and how many HYDRA soldiers on motorcycles there were. Yet, despite just how swiftly Bucky pulled on the trigger of the rifle, he tried to make sure that it took no more than two or three bullets punching into each rider, to down the soldier.

Swinging the rifle to the right and behind, as Steve swerved the motorcycle and side car to the left, dodging the majority of the company of riders, he continued to fire. Marta's terrified screams were barely heard by him, but a quick glance over told him that she at least had the sensibilities to keep her head down and low. She was gripping whatever she could of the motorcycle's sides as tightly as she could though.

He knew he had to shed weight, had to detach himself from the motorcycle in order to allow Steve to gain more speed. He knew that Steve knew the same, as he sent him a quick glance and curt nod with it. It was not for escape, but for the fact that they were no longer on the main road and charging through dense forest – over snow, no less. There was a very good chance that the sidecar could shear off, or continue to violently unbalance the motorcycle with just how fast they were traveling.

Even before he ran out of bullets in the rifle, he was already preparing himself, as he felt Steve shift and slide their way around the trees, slipping the motorcycle in the snow. Each bump on the uneven ground threatened to send him flying out of the sidecar, but he grimly held on, as he continued to fire the rifle at a lower rate. Twice, he had to duck and dodge return fire, as what was left of the company of riders charged in after them; their motorcycles faster than the weighty rig.

Three seconds later, he saw his opportunity to jump, as one of the motorcycles charged in, in an attempt to ram them from the side. Launching himself at the black-clad rider, he swung the butt of the rifle like a javelin into the soldier. There was enough force behind it to dislodge and tip the rider over.

Bucky's left hand clasped over the left handle of the motorcycle, as he quickly let go of the rifle and swung himself onto the seat, clasping his right hand over the other handle. He righted the motorcycle before it could completely slip out into the snow and tip over, though the few grenades that were hanging off the front sides of the frame were not helping the balance at all. His forward speed had slowed enough that Steve was now several feet ahead of him and gaining distance, but he didn't waste time getting his bearings.

He gunned the engines and weaved his way through the forest, trying not to lose too much grip on the ground and through the snow. Bucky reached Steve's left side, intercepting an attempted attack from the left. Kicking the rider with his left foot, he didn't bother to watch as the rider tumbled and swerved to the side, as he fought to maintain his motorcycle's balance. He barely regained it as he immediately swerved his way around a few thick trunks of trees, skidding slightly. It briefly separated him from Steve and put some distance between them.

When Bucky returned to Steve's side, he saw him bring his shield up from the front and to his right, deflecting a few opportunistic bullets. Not a moment later, he saw the sidecar violently shear and tumble end over end for a brief moment, before being lost to the woods behind them. Steve had deliberately separated the sidecar from his motorcycle, as the shield returned to the front to continue to protect Marta.

“Steve!” he shouted, his voice nearly lost to the bitter cold and wind.

With just how fast they were all riding towards safety, and the fact that Steve was carrying two instead of one on his motorcycle, they needed to thin the riders some more. Intercepting and attempting to shoot them with whatever weapons they had was not going to cut it. He had an idea, but it was going to be dangerous; though he didn't think it would be any more dangerous with the several near-misses into tree trunks he had had in the past few minutes.

“Delancy!” he continued to shout.

Bucky didn't see Steve hesitate, but he didn't hear an immediate acknowledgment of the idea until a full three seconds later – after the _bonk_ noise of the shield indicated that Steve had swung it at another pursuer. “Do it!” Steve shouted.

He didn't slow his own forward momentum down, but he did immediately flick the headlight on his motorcycle off. In the darkness, especially in as dense of a forest as this, it was downright dangerous for him to do such a thing. However, his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness as he swerved and slid his motorcycle around a stump. Just as he righted himself again, he braked for a half-second.

Headlights from their pursuers zoomed past him. Bucky immediately revved the engine and shot off to catch up. The first soldier he reached didn't even see him as he swerved in, plucked the pin from the grenade hanging off the back of his motorcycle, and swerved away to the right. He did the same to another soldier before swerving further to the right.

The two motorcycles exploded in spectacular fashion, briefly lighting up the forest as their fiery remains took out six others. Bullets peppered the area where he had been spotted, but it was short-lived with the dying firelight. Wasting little time, Bucky approached again, but this time, plucked one of the grenades from the side of his motorcycle. Arming it, he ducked and swerved to miss a low branch and trunk with one hand on the handlebars, before lobbing the grenade up and to his right.

Five more were thrown before the first of the grenades exploded in spectacular fashion, downing a thick tree that just happened to land on two of the riders and block a few others on his and Steve's right flank. He flicked on the headlight of his motorcycle and caught up to where Steve was, just as the rest of the grenades exploded.

Glancing back for a moment, he couldn't help but grimly grin. Even without the aide of night vision scopes, his aim had been well enough to dislodge enough earth to topple over several trees. Those riders who had survived being crushed by the falling trees in the forest were trapped and pinned in. What had been a company of soldiers after them now looked to be a little less than a quarter of a company.

It was still a lot, but thinning them out before they got to the field headquarters of the SSR wouldn't be as difficult of a problem now. Bucky briefly looked up towards the canopy of the forest, as snow suddenly started to lightly fall. He returned his attention to the treacherous path to safety in front of him.

It was still dark, but even through the sudden storm that had whipped up, he thought that the shadows of the forest were becoming lighter. Dawn was most likely fast approaching, and soon, the HYDRA riders would be able to easily spot them. Worse yet, if he, Steve, and Marta were caught out in the incoming snow storm, they'd be sitting ducks for the HYDRA soldiers.

* * *

_SSR Field Headquarters..._

 

It was the thumping noises, followed by noticeable tremors in the ground that alerted Peggy to the fact that the sounds were not coming from over the radio. Even the operator had looked up in alarm as Peggy stepped back, just as an MP entered the tent. It had been where she and the operator had been monitoring communications with the Commandos, along with Colonel Philips, in their approach to Kronas.

Moments later, the general horn to take up arms was blasted, as the MP said, “Ma'am, scout reports HYDRA riders approaching at less than company size. They're also pursuing what looks like two people – one of them possibly Captain Rogers.”

“Then let's give HYDRA a better target, Corporal,” she answered, keeping the relief she felt from showing as she nodded to the MP, who then left. Turning to the radio operator, she said, “Inform Colonel Philips that we're under possible attack, but that the size is less than a company.”

“Yes, ma'am,” the operator stated. “What about Captain Rogers?”

“Let him know, but that it's unconfirmed,” she stated, tamping down on the relief she felt within her. The MP had not reported whether or not the scout had actually seen Steve through the binoculars or just his shield. Without better visual confirmation, she knew that the shield could have been taken by anyone.

Hurrying out after the MP, the blinding snowstorm she stumbled into nearly arrested her movement. What little she could see in front of her was that the rest of the remaining MP detail hurrying towards the perimeter guns. A small detachment had gone with Philips, who had accompanied the Soviet forces, to Kronas.

“Howard!” she shouted, spotting the inventor and one of his assistants – David Brewster – hurrying towards what looked like an unmanned perimeter gun.

The guns had been one of the major inventions of Howard that he had been specifically commissioned to complete before they had set up the camp here. While most of the MPs had called them over-sized machine guns, they were much more than that: they were AA and AT guns combined into one. Each had an extremely high rate of fire without the worry for an overwhelming amount of heat being discharged, and was able to track any type of movement with great accuracy.

There were only eight of them, lined in a semi-circle around the perimeter like monolithic, encapsulated statues that stood over eight feet in height. The north side of the field camp was the only portion that did not have the guns, as that faced the steep and tall cliff that looked into the valley containing Narva and several other towns.

The only down side was that it took three operators to man the guns – one to operate the firing mechanism, one to keep the magazine fed, and the final one to keep the accuracy of it calibrated. With the detachment following Philips, they were short one team on the perimeter defense. Thus, Peggy ran over and climbed onto the chair before Howard could.

“Pegs—” Howard began.

“Shut it and begin the calibration, Howard,” she ordered, firing up the sequence and glancing down at the screen before her.

The addition of a screen with targeting solutions and roughly calculated distances from the gun to the targets was what made the over-sized machine gun more than what it did. It had taken Howard and his entire engineering team almost an entire month to draw up the concepts, figure out the calculations, and begin building a prototype. Philips had received word about the hidden HYDRA base located in Estonia in May, but by late July, all eight had been built. Miraculously, all eight had been successfully and secretly shipped to this forward camp without incident.

With the hatch closed around her, along with Howard and David in position, Peggy placed both hands on the c-shaped handles, index fingers resting lightly over the trigger. She didn't have to wait long as Howard called out from beside her, saying, “Targeting solution marking—”

On her screen, Peggy saw the blips as if it were a radar, except that they were marked with a countdown of distance based on what the invisible pulses the gun was receiving back from the binocular-like vision system that the targeting mechanism was attached to. The snow was making it difficult to visualize, but soon, she thought she heard the sounds of motorcycles rumbling in the air, that was followed swiftly by gunfire.

Bursting out of a swirl of snow was the red-white-blue shield of Steve on a motorcycle, about a half-mile from the perimeter of guns. Relief flooded her, but that was extremely short lived, as almost immediately following him was a rather large amount of HYDRA soldiers on motorcycles as well. Peggy lifted the nose of the gun up ever so slightly as she saw him close the distance quite fast, blue helmet marking him starkly against the white snow and dark forest. “All guns, I have visual on Captain Rogers at sixty-by-seventy-four, sou-west.”

“Copy, we see him as well, ma'am,” came the acknowledgments that rang through the heavily encrypted radio frequency they were using.

“Visual on Sergeant Barnes, forty, no fifty—shit. He's tearing across the lines,” another MP stated over the radio before Peggy could give the order to open fire on the HYDRA riders pursuing Steve and what looked to be a person riding with Steve.

“Fire as you see, gentlemen,” she ordered, as she saw a fast moving speck briefly tear across her screen before it turned 90 degrees and headed straight towards the guns. Pulling the trigger in short bursts of gunfire from the gun, she didn't even need a label on the motorcycle charging towards her to know that it was Bucky.

It was difficult to hear over the noise of the gunfire being exchanged, coupled with the pinging noise from conventional weapons returning fire, but it was the deep pounding of a fist against the side of the perimeter gun's housing that caused her to pause for a moment. “Sou-by-sou-east!” she heard Bucky yell from outside.

She immediately swung the gun towards that direction as she relayed the order through the radio to the other operators. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw that Steve had also made it within the confines of the perimeter – and just in time as well. Just before the last of the guns facing the south-west had finished firing, those on the east and situated near the south part of the began to buzz.

Peggy respooled the gun up, as Howard sent her new targeting solutions, and pressed the trigger just as a large wave of black dots appeared through the snow. Five short bursts later, and a shout over the radio from one of the operators that their gun had jammed, what was left of the wave of HYDRA soldiers who tried to ambush them were scurrying away.

She shut the mechanism down, as Howard was already opening the hatch to let the cold air and snow in. “Carter?!” came Bucky's surprised exclamation as she accepted the helping hand that Howard had offered. She stepped out and down to the ground next to David, who had a most mild of expressions, coupled with a wide-eyed look from his experience in operating a part of the gun.

She would have replied, but she saw Steve beyond Bucky's right shoulder, finally shutting off the stolen HYDRA motorcycle and getting off. Steve immediately turned and helped a shaken-looking woman off the motorcycle as well.

“Where's Colonel Philips?” Bucky asked.

“He left with a detachment of MPs and the Commandos for Kronas before dawn. The Soviets wanted to take the town before HYDRA could get word about the breach,” she answered as she blinked and refocused her attention on him.

“You'll need this, Carter,” Bucky stated slinging the satchel that he had carried across his back, off, and handed it to her. She took it, though it was heavier than she anticipated. On first glance, it looked to contain a lot of paper.

“I'll make sure the MPs are good on the perimeter,” he continued to say. “Steve will brief you on what we found, but you need to radio Philips and the others to halt their advance, now. Kronas is a trap.”

* * *

The jammed perimeter gun was something that Bucky couldn't do anything about – not until Howard or the other engineers could get to it. Still, as he hurried back towards the tents in the center of the camp, he knew that he and Steve had been extremely lucky that they had made it to the camp without additional injuries than the ones they had sustained at the facility. Of Marta, he didn't know how she fared, but last he had caught a glimpse of her was that she was able to stand and get off of Steve's motorcycle.

Pushing thoughts about the woman aside, he entered the planning tent; the MPs not having stopped him. Almost immediately as the tent flap closed, warmth from the tent itself enveloped him, driving away the chill that he felt with the paltry single layer of a stolen shirt he wore. It had only been the rush of the escape, coupled with his concentration on making sure that their pursuers did not kill them, along with the brief firefight that had ensued, that he had not even thought about just how cold he was – until now.

“Can it be destroyed?” Steve asked, bringing Bucky's attention back to what mattered the most: what they had found about Kronas.

“Hold on,” Howard answered, as Bucky saw him take the blueprints and spread them out and over a portion of the maps already on the table.

Movement out of the corner of his eyes had Bucky turning to see the tent flap opening and Emily returning with someone's spare collared and long-sleeved shirt, olive-green sweater, and someone's leather jacket. “I hope these will fit, Bucky,” she quietly said to him, offering him the clothes.

“Thanks, Emily,” he gratefully answered, as he stepped away to accept the bundle of clothing.

She brightened a little and then returned to where Steve, Peggy, and the other code-breaker that Peggy had brought with her, were gathered. Steve was pointing to the maps, while holding a piece of the German intelligence information in his hand. Peggy had another piece and was reaching over to place a marker of sorts on the map. The only reason why Bucky had not labeled it Nazi was mainly because he had not seen _any_ sort of markings on the few reports he had glanced at, that had the usual symbol.

Howard and his two engineers looked to be extremely busy, as they poured through the blueprints and were pointing at various sections. Bucky dared not disturb them either. Howard had brought the best of his engineers with him – David Brewster, and a much older fellow on loan from MI6, Quincy Meigs. If they were going to get a chance to stop this weapon with as little casualties as possible, he knew that the three would be able to figure it out – he had confidence in them.

Though it would have been more prudent for him to leave to go get changed into the much warmer clothing, Bucky didn't want to miss anything that was going on. It was not that he didn't think someone would inform him, but that immediate action would be required, and repeating information would just delay said action. It was better for him to hear whatever analysis Peggy and her team, along with Howard and his, would present right then and there.

Thus, he went to the far corner of the tent, ducking slightly behind the table that contained the relay radio equipment that was used to keep in contact with the Commandos. The operator was currently outside per Peggy's request, but at the moment, Bucky could hear nothing urgent being broadcast through the headphones.

Placing the bundle of clothing on the table, he turned so that what little the others could see of him behind the radio equipment was only his back. He would have changed in the open, but he had a sense of modesty to not go about embarrassing the women within the tent. That, and he was quite sure that his body was still covered in black and blue bruises – he did not want to have anyone to tell him to go to the medic. After what had almost happened to him at the facility, he did not want any stranger touching him – not right now – and that included the medic.

His assumption about his body was proven correct, as he stripped himself of the shirt he had stolen off the dead HYDRA soldier's body. The dull ache was still there, but fatigue was slowly catching up to him as he placed the shirt to the side and put on the new shirt. It fit better than the other shirt, but when he went to go pull the sweater over his head, that was when Howard's exclamation filled the air.

“Eureka!”

Pulling the rest of the sweater over himself, he took up the leather jacket and rolled up the old shirt, stuffing it into the corner of the tent. Bucky slipped the leather jacket on – it was a little smaller than he liked but still fit over his shoulders – and returned to the table.

Howard continued, flipping the current blueprint over so that both they could see it, as he said, “This is the core of the device. There's an outer layer you'll need to break through with your shield, which is just shielding for the heart of the mechanism, Steve. It's this inner layer that you'll need to be careful of.”

The inventor pointed to a triangular configuration of three cylinder-like object within the drawings. Each of the cylinders had dimensions labeled no larger than a tin of preserved peaches for each cylinder. “It most likely rotates really fast, so you can't just throw the shield at it – it'll ricochet off,” Howard continued to say.

“So I need to time it and jam it with the shield, in order to shut the machine down?” Steve asked.

“Yes, and no,” Howard stated, shaking his head slightly. “Without an actual look at the device, we're not sure what it is. David here thinks it's probably one of the key mechanisms that helps the machine produce the winter weather. Given the other diagrams, I'm inclined to agree with him. That's where you come in, Sergeant.”

Bucky remained silent as he saw Howard move his finger over to the central mechanism that looked like a long thin cylinder. It was about the thinness and width of a Luger's barrel, as Howard continued to say, “You're going to need to make this shot right at the center. Whatever this is, it's clear that it powers the machine, especially if its glowing blue.”

“Won't the chain reaction just set off the mines?” Bucky asked, frowning slightly.

Given the dimensions he had seen, the target was no larger than the width of his hand. Considering where the treeline ended, he knew that he needed to find a good vantage point within the town that would give him a clear line of sight to wherever the device was stored.

“Not if the rest of the Commandos unground the device first,” the inventor stated as the MI6 engineering liaison slid another diagram over to cover the core diagram. Howard pointed at the five anchor points that sat like spider legs, holding the device down. “We're not sure if there's going to be leads buried or running along the legs, but these areas are the most logical places to string them up.”

“So blow the legs up above ground?” Steve asked.

“But not all at once,” Howard warned. “Since HYDRA likes to use pressure mechanisms for their mines, they've probably got it rigged for one giant pressure release or electrical burst, on the instance that the device is destroyed. Destroying the legs one-by-one will just create mini waves that should dissipate enough to not cause the mines to blow – kind of like soldiers running and pounding the ground.”

“So you're saying that this thing will float once the legs are destroyed, right?” Bucky asked, looking slightly concerned. It wasn't that he didn't think he could make a sniper shot with something floating in the air, it was _what_ the device would do once it was not anchored to the ground.

Howard took a deep breath and looked at both of them. “Hopefully yes. All I can tell you is that it needs to float high enough that the subsequent destruction's blast wave _won't_ trigger the mines buried below. Without more information, I can't give you a good estimate of just how fast or high it needs to be – at minimum. Best guess, just aim for at least rooftop high, Sergeant.”

Bucky wanted to voice his uncertainty at just what the inventor was saying, but it looked as if Howard was not done giving them the bad news. “The other side of this problem is that it's going to be freezing, if not even colder than this weather it's producing, Steve. I've never tested all of the properties yet, but I think vibranium becomes brittle at 40 below. If you manage to jam it in the mechanism, I don't know how long it will last before it breaks.”

“The shield can be replaced,” Steve stated with absolutely no disappointment inflecting his voice.

“So, time _and_ height are working against us,” Bucky couldn't help but mutter.

“We can do it,” Steve said after a moment, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder and squeezing it briefly before letting it go.

“Yeah,” he answered.

He and Steve had to; they and the rest of the Commandos had to make sure the device was destroyed. It was up to them to make sure that HYDRA would not be able to stymie the Allies or Soviet forces any longer.

* * *

“ _Do me a favor and look after Marta, will you, Carter?”_

As much as Peggy wanted to linger and watch the backs of Steve and Bucky on their stolen HYDRA motorcycles fade into specks against the dark forest, and listen to the noise of the vehicles fade into the envelope of the dense forest, she didn't. Even before Steve had become a dark speck contrasting against the snow-covered forest, she had already turned back and made her way across the small camp.

She held Steve's determined eyes in her mind's eye, but it was Bucky's warning to her just before the two had departed that she still heard. She pushed aside her worry for Steve, and what he and the rest of the Commandos were about to do – a dangerous, but ultimately necessary and needed mission. She could not worry about them in the field, not when Bucky's unusual warning sat closer to home.

While she would have normally dismissed Bucky's words as a request to make sure that a rescued woman was made safe and reassured, it was Bucky's reaction to the woman that had made her pause the dismissal. Marta looked similar to Lorraine, and certainly fit the 'type' that she knew that attracted Bucky's interest. She had even pointed out to him long ago that those whom he was attracted to had two distinct physical characteristics: light-haired with light-colored eyes.

But even as beaten down and exhausted as he had looked, she knew that he would have never passed up an opportunity to closely physically interact with someone whom he was attracted to – however small and simple that interaction was. She had clearly seen him completely ignore Marta in favor of directly handing her, Peggy, the satchel before going to make sure that the MPs had the perimeter established.

It would have been considered routine, but it was completely opposite of the usual behavior in public she had come to expect from Bucky. She had expected him to take Marta from Steve, so that Steve could either brief them on what had happened, or walk the perimeter – as Steve had done numerous times before. Fortunately, Steve's shout for medics had the medics arriving in a timely manner so that Steve was able to still brief her and the others on what had happened with little delay.

Finally, while she knew that Bucky could have ignored Marta all due in part to the frenetic chaos of what was going on, the warning that had been said to her had specifically been stated in Russian. They were the only two within the field team here who knew Russian somewhat fluently, though Peggy had had her suspicions that Bucky knew the language as fluently as a native.

The warning had been whispered to her in Russian, and that was where her concern primarily stemmed from. Bucky had not wanted anyone else in the SSR to know what he was saying. He also suspected something was not right with Marta, but most likely couldn't pinpoint where his unease was coming from.

Thus now, after ensuring that the radio operator had relayed as brief and succinct of a general plan to Philips, she was headed to the medical tent. She could not hear any shouts of the doctor ordering the nurse around, and thus had to assume that everything was all right for the moment.

Entering the tent, she let the flap drop as she saw the doctor in the far corner of the tent jotting things down on a clipboard, while the nurse was at the duty station, seemingly taking stock of the supplies they had. Marta herself was lying on a cot in the middle of the tent, covers drawn up to her chest. The woman had turned her head towards her when she entered.

Warning still within the back of her mind, Peggy approached, but made sure that she had as pleasant of an expression on her face as possible. She pulled up a stool and sat on the woman's left, saying, “Hello. My name is Peggy Carter, and I work with the SSR – the Strategic Science Reserve. Captain Rogers briefly told me that you were being held within the castle that he and Sergeant Barnes were also being held in. If you don't mind, I have a few questions to ask you. Is that possible?”

The woman shook her head in affirmation, but did not attempt to sit up. She looked as exhausted, if not more than Sergeant Barnes. However, there was an alertness to her eyes that Peggy had caught when she had mentioned Steve and Bucky's names. To the woman's credit, she did say, “I am Marta. Marta Wieczorek. I was governess to the children. I stayed as lure to...to give time for escape.”

“I'm sorry,” Peggy said, as Marta fell silent, glancing away for a moment.

Whatever suspicions Bucky had about the woman, it was clear that this was not a part of it. She could see the pain behind those light eyes of hers, of what HYDRA must have done to her as she brought time for the family that had been living there to escape. It also became clear to her that this was not the time to go about asking the questions she wanted to ask – at least not until later and possibly when Philips returned to camp.

“Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes,” Marta hesitatingly spoke up after a few moments. “They are good?”

“Yes,” she answered, nodding. “They are uninjured.”

“Thank you,” Marta softly stated. “Please... tell them 'thank you'. Please to Sergeant Barnes.”

With the way that Steve had ridden into camp with the stolen motorcycle, she could only assume that Steve had done everything that he could to make sure that no harm came to Marta. He had most likely prioritized Marta's safety over taking out HYDRA pursuers, and had left that to Bucky. Whatever Marta had seen and experienced in the harrowing ride to safety, it was clear that she held Bucky more in admiration than Steve.

It was not odd, but Peggy knew that it was slightly uncommon, as Steve was usually the one in the limelight. Rescues, heroics, and the like usually centered on Steve – because he was Captain America a symbol of hope, and because both the shield and uniform he wore _stood out_ in the field. She knew that most people would have normally not focused on the peripherals – Bucky and the other Commandos. For Marta to have done so during the escape, over the one who protected her, was a little odd.

But her gut told her that that brief analysis was still not the cause of Bucky's unusual warning. There was nothing else she could do at the moment; not until Philips returned from Kronas. Thus, she nodded and stood up, saying, “I will. Rest now, Marta. I'll ask my questions some other time.”

The woman nodded and turned her head away, closing her eyes. Peggy didn't linger to watch her fall asleep, and left the tent. It was still bitterly cold outside, though the snow was no longer falling heavily and seemed to have tapered off to a lighter rate. The MPs were shoring up the perimeter of the camp as best as they could in the cold conditions, rotating whenever they could between warmth at the campfires and perimeter patrols.

Returning to the main planning tent, she saw the radio operator shake his head, indicating that there was nothing new being reported. Emily and Darin were sitting to the side of the table, going through the documents that had been in the satchel. Both looked up when she entered, and it was Emily who said, “Ma'am, there's some Russian ones within the documents that Sergeant Barnes brought back. We've left it over there.”

Peggy went over to the small stack that Emily had put together and plucked the first few sheets of paper on top. It was not ciphered at all, and the handwriting looked to have been written by a different person than the German documents about Kronas and the surrounding towns near Narva. In fact, the Cyrillic script looked to have been leisurely written – as if the person writing it was writing a thesis or a hypothesis with supporting arguments.

It was only well within the first few pages of the documents that Peggy paused in her reading, frowning ever so slightly. While she had advised and knew that Bucky had grown as a field agent of sorts, it became clear to her it was a few words in particular from the papers she held in her hands, that most likely became the basis of his concern.

[Unconscious thought, manipulation, and subversive implantation.]

They were not words that were usually in field reports or within a garrison command that held secrets to a HYDRA super-weapon. What she held in her hands seemed more like psychological reports and analyses, than anything else. It now stood to reason that these documents, coupled with Marta being held there, were the source of Bucky's warning.

She knew that Bucky was not a paranoid person – not by a long shot – but he was becoming ever more aware of a seemingly shadow-war that the SSR was waging. While the focus of the SSR was to stop Schmidt and HYDRA, most of the intelligence reports that the SSR compiled were from what the 107th brought back on their raiding mission, or allied informants sent their way.

Field agents – active and pure intelligence operatives were something that they didn't have; at least the SSR didn't acknowledge. It was a little idiotic that their rivalry with the OSS had caused them to deny that they had 'active intelligence agents' in the derivative form of the 107th.

Peggy considered herself one whenever she got to go out into the field. By that same token, Bucky was the only one she considered to be an actual intelligence operative, even though he had other duties besides the ones he performed well in the shadows.

Still, with the documents, Bucky's warning now made sense. It was up to her now to disprove or prove that the sniper's concerns were valid. She hope that it was the former rather than the latter, but she had had too much experience validating numerous amounts of Bucky's hunches brought back from the field, to make that naive of an assumption.

HYDRA's strength lay not only in the multitude of soldiers that went with their motto of: cutting off one head, and two more will grow. The organization was one of the most wily ones when it came to intelligence warfare. Peggy was determined to not let them win in that avenue, or any others for the matter.

* * *

_Later, approaching the outskirts of Kronas..._

 

It was pure chaos within the forests near Kronas. Soviet soldiers were engaged in open combat with HYDRA soldiers from the facility and within Kronas. HYDRA surrounded them from both sides, with both forces using the thick forests as a detriment and advantage in combat. Civilians were running everywhere, trying to get out and stay out of the line of fire. The only saving grace was that Bucky had not seen one of the HYDRA soldiers produce a glowing blue weapon of sorts.

Bucky had ditched the motorcycle as soon as he and Steve had encountered the outermost perimeter of Soviet forces fighting against HYDRA. It was clear that Steve wanted to stay and help the soldiers, but it was also clear that he knew that they had a higher priority mission. Fortunately, the area where they had encountered both forces was also where Philips and the rest of the Commandos were.

Whatever the radio operator back at camp had relayed, it had not been much or in detail. However, it was enough for their commander to understand and order them to engage. In what limited English the Soviet soldiers around them could understand, it seemed that at least one of the platoon commanders understood that the Commandos were going to go after the super-weapon.

Shostakov was the platoon commander's name, and he had ordered his men to accompany them further into the frenetic chaos. Bucky considered it a slight miracle that not one of Soviet soldiers that ran through the thick snow drifts and down into the town's streets with them was struck by the bullets flying everywhere. The Commandos were used to charging into danger as the tip of the spear, firing away with their weapons, but the Soviets... God only knew how they saw this battle as yet another inch to claim against the Nazis.

With Steve charging ahead, shield leading the way and deflecting bullets from the HYDRA soldiers who had not engaged those at the perimeter, finding the HYDRA weapon was not difficult at all. They just ran through the town, towards where the guards were the heaviest.

Bucky threw a grenade ahead of the rest of the Commandos into a fortified position that HYDRA had set up. Whether it exploding and completely taking out the position stirred the hornet's nest or otherwise, more HYDRA soldiers seemed to pour out of the lumber warehouse. This time, instead of conventional weapons, their weapons held the tell-tale sign of a glowing blue core.

“Take cover!”

Bucky barely had time to relay that command from Steve in Russian to their allies, before a hail of blue bolts seared and peppered the air all around them. Splinters of wood, along with scalding hot dirt and shrapnel flew everywhere, as the machine-gun-like fire from the HYDRA weapons halted the Commandos' advance.

He blearily blinked, but even as the air around him became chokingly thick with smoke, he glanced down towards the far side of the warehouse. Situated beyond the main road was bombed-out barn of sorts. While the vantage point was not high, it was high enough for what he needed to do – that was drive HYDRA away from the warehouse so that Steve and the other Commandos could carry out the mission.

“< _I need a sniper to follow me!_ >” he shouted in Russian to Shostakov, knowing that as soon as he started sniping from the barn's loft, HYDRA would be able to make his position. He knew that he was a fast shot, but he was not _that_ fast. Another sniper would help him divert and down HYDRA soldiers faster.

“< _Krylenko, go with him!_ >” Shostakov ordered.

At the nod of a young, fresh-faced soldier whose eyes betrayed just how much he had been through, Bucky immediately tore away from the wall he had pressed himself against and sprinted across the snow-covered ground. The young soldier followed closely behind him as blue bolts peppered the air and ground near their feet.

Fortunately, they both made it to the barn without being hit. Quickly climbing up the rickety ladder, he carefully made his way across the burnt beams. The crunching noise of the ladder behind him caused him to briefly look back to see that Krylenko had made it up to the loft as well, but that the ladder had broken into pieces. Silently pointing for the younger soldier to take the right window – which looked a lot sturdier than the left – Bucky resumed making his way across to the left side of front-face of the barn.

If the loft collapsed underneath him, he knew that he would stand a better chance of surviving the fall than Krylenko. He still hated what Zola had done to him, but what was done was done.

He had been augmented in a similar fashion to Steve. It was something he never advertised out loud to anyone, nor admitted out loud to himself. He knew that Steve had come to the same conclusion as he had done, after a particular mission in which he had sniped seventeen HYDRA soldiers faster than he had ever done before. To his relief, Steve still treated him the same, though there was a silent understanding, of solidarity between the two of them that their lives were wholly different than ever before.

Now, he needed that speed, that augmentation of his skills to down the HYDRA soldiers as fast as he had done to the seventeen before. There was no more hiding the fact that Zola had physically changed him at Azzano, from his friends.

Settling down fast against the floor with his rifle, Bucky sighted through the scope and slowed down his breathing—

_Five targets, two behind the hay, three in cover behind the overturned wagon._

_Line up—finger on pulse—heartbeat—fire—fire—fire—fire—fire._

_Swing to the left—two targets running for cover—tracking—heartbeat—fire—fire._

_Ten-o-clock from Steve and Dugan—ten feet—three targets—finger on pulse—fire—fire—fire._

_Shield trajectory—six-o-clock from Steve—line up—fire._

_Morita and Falsworth pinned—two machine gun operators—heartbeat—fire—fire._

_Steve, Dugan, and Dernier charging—targets ahead—fire—fire—fire—fire—fire._

_Reload._

_Breathe._

_Right and up—Shostakov's men being pursued—tracking—heartbeat—fire—fire—fire._

_Shield on three—fourth not down—heartbeat—fire._

_Finger on pulse—breathe—Falsworth and Dernier in warehouse—two chasing—fire—fire._

_Two targets hiding behind stone wall._

_Fire—fire—Steve in warehouse, target chasing after him—fire._

_All stone wall targets down—finger on pulse—fire—fire._

_Seven bullets left in current custom cartridge of bullets. Commandos are within warehouse. Shostakov and his platoon are overwhelming what is left of HYDRA._

_No more immediate targets._

By the time Bucky paused and briefly lifted his right eye away from the scope to confirm with both eyes that Shostakov's men were indeed, killing the last of what was left of HYDRA, a series of explosions filled the air. He pressed his eye back into the scope; Steve and the others were in the midst of destroying the anchors that held the device down.

Not a moment later, he felt a rumble beneath the ground that was swiftly followed by a loud cracking noise that had even Krylenko audibly swearing something quite filthy in Russian. Bucky immediately focused the scope and his attention on what was swiftly breaking through the rooftop of the warehouse.

The device and its position was what Howard had stated it would be, but it was not rising any further than it emerged – still a quarter way submerged within the rooftop of the warehouse. Through the scope, Bucky could see Steve's shield wedged within, and holding back the rotating mechanism. Center most was the core of the device, and Bucky gritted his teeth: it was glowing blue.

He had no other choice – it was either destroy the device and flatten the town from the resulting explosion, or allow the HYDRA super-weapon to continue to operate and stop the Allied advance.

_Breathe—pause—heartbeat—fire._

* * *

_SSR Field Headquarters..._

 

Peggy supposed that another invasion of HYDRA forces would not have sounded like a thousand voices echoing through the forest. It would've been rather stealthy, with less motorcycle noise, and definitely not in Russian. She looked up just as the MP that was briefing her about the current status of the perimeter gun that had jammed when Steve and Bucky had arrived hours earlier, looked up as well.

Like ghostly spectres coming out of a dark forest, the Commandos, along with Philips, the three MPs that went with him, and the Soviet commander and three of his adjutants, emerged. Though Peggy's heart leapt at seeing that Steve was walking towards the camp - shield intact - without any sort of injury, her elation was short-lived. Every one of them, including Philips, looked utterly exhausted – never mind that all of them were covered in soot, mud, and pine brambles.

“Colonel Philips and Colonel Rostov,” she greeted in a crisp, professional tone, as the MP beside her snapped to attention.

“Agent Carter,” Philips answered in kind, as she walked beside him. “Mission success.”

“< _No it was not, sir._ >” she heard Rostov state, with what little English Rostov understood having been enough to at least understand Philips' words. Even without a translation, it was clear that Philips understood the intent of the comment made. “< _We were promised that the weapon would not be destroyed—_ >”

Whatever else the Soviet commander was going to say, was cut off as a familiar audible whine spooled up behind them. Even before Peggy had turned, grabbed the pistol at her side, and raised it half-way up in a defensive gesture, the whine abruptly stopped as the familiar sizzling sound of someone being vaporized was heard. Startled shouts accompanied the noise, as she saw a smoking remnant, along with a burnt ground within the snow that signified where one of the adjutants used to be.

“< _Damnit!_ >” Bucky swore in Russian, as she saw him suddenly spin around, march forward and snatch something small with a glowing blue core away from one of the adjutants who had an utterly shocked look on his face. “< _We fucking told you that this needed to be destroyed!_ >” Bucky continued.

Angrier than she had ever seen him before, he then threw the HYDRA weapon further away into the woods. Before even Steve could take a couple of steps to stop him, Peggy saw Bucky raise his sniper rifle and fire at the weapon. It exploded harmlessly within the trees.

“< _You do not...you cannot understand,_ _ **boy**_ _._ >” Rostov began in a condescending tone, as the commander of the Soviet battalion stepped out and approached Bucky.

Peggy was not the only one to notice that the Commandos were shifting slightly, looking nervous. Even Steve looked to be taking a half-step in front of Bucky, but seemed to not do so just yet. Whatever had happened in Kronas, it was clear that there was an even wider divide between what little was left of the alliance between the Soviets and the SSR.

“Carter,” Philips quietly spoke up from beside her.

“Sir,” she answered just as quietly.

Before Peggy could begin to translate for her commander, Bucky interrupted in an angry tone, saying, “< _Oh I fucking understand every single damn thing, Colonel Rostov. I understand that you want something large, something powerful to bring against the Nazi army. You want to drive them out, the same as the rest of us do. HYDRA weaponry is not the way to do it. All that their weaponry causes is death. Sacrificing more lives is not the way to win the war!_ >”

Peggy's eyes widened ever so slightly as Bucky took a challenging step towards Rostov, continuing to say, “< _Kronas didn't have to happen if your_ _ **leader**_ _hadn't been so obliging when they invaded Poland. You wouldn't have had the wolves—_ >”

She was not the only one to take a half-step forward when the commander of the battalion suddenly raised a hand and attempted to strike Bucky for his insolence. To others who didn't understand what was going on, it must have looked confusing enough, but understandable that Bucky's words in Russian had insulted the commander. Before that hand could move even half-way down, Steve intervened, placing himself between Bucky and Rostov.

“Enough!” Steve stated, pushing Bucky back a couple of steps, looking back and forth between the two.

The heat of Bucky's glare at the Soviet commander was intense, and it worried Peggy. While she knew that Steve's best friend was able to control his temper, had a good-nature countenance about him, and hid most of the horrors of what he had seen out in the field well, this was very unusual. Philips had stated only mission success, but Rostov had not considered it so. Therefore, she could reasonably presume that the HYDRA super-weapon had been destroyed, when it was clear that the Soviet commander wanted to preserve the weapon.

But what had happened after that?

She didn't get an immediate answer to her unasked question, as the Soviet commander abruptly turned and gestured for what remained of the adjutants to follow him. Rostov continued towards the camp, but just as he passed Philips he paused. Peggy heard Rostov say, “I expect discipline, Colonel Philips.”

It was clear that the Soviet commander expected Philips to instill some sort of disciplinary action on Bucky for the words that had been exchanged. Peggy had not translated any of it, but the intent behind the words and actions taken were well understood, as Philips said, “My apologies to you and your men, Colonel Rostov.”

Peggy dutifully translated the words, but there was a clear tightening of Philips' jaw in response to what he had just stated. Philips was clearly angry, but Peggy was not sure that it was directly entirely at what had been exchanged between Rostov and Bucky. Still, she did not attempt to interject any sort of additional words or attachments to Philips' words and fell silent.

A single nod of acknowledgment was all that they received, though the Soviet group only took a few steps forward before Rostov paused again. This time, the Soviet commander turned slightly to the side, saying, “< _Aside from the insults you've hurled at the Motherland, I do have to wonder, Sergeant Barnes, how you've come by with such a strange accent in your Russian._ >”

The Soviet commander abruptly began walking forward again, as Peggy turned her attention to Bucky, just in time to see him turn pale as a ghost for a brief moment. That moment was gone just as quickly as it had come, as she saw him regain his composure, but did not say another word towards the retreating back of the Soviet commander.

“Andrews, take Sergeant Barnes' weapons and return them to Stark. Davenport, please escort him to the north perimeter and wait there for further orders. I'll deal with the disciplinary action after the briefing with the Soviets. Captain Rogers, get the rest of your men settled and meet Agent Carter and I at the planning tent.”

“Sir—” she heard Steve begin, protesting the action. However, the look that Philips had leveled him was enough to prevent him from protesting any further. Steve took a reluctant step back and away from Bucky, allowing the MPs closest to them to approach.

Peggy stepped up and placed a reassuring hand on Steve's arm, as Bucky surrendered his weapons peacefully and without protest, before he was led away. She knew that there had been countless of times where Steve had intervened on disciplinary actions upon the Commandos. Most of them had pertained to Bucky in particular. Favoritism and getting things done aside, it was clear that the Commandos received a lot of leeway in their actions. But there were times that Steve had not intervened in the more severe of consequences that had happened.

This was one such thing that even without translation, everyone knew that disciplinary action needed to be taken. Even with a fractured alliance, it was clear from the documents that Peggy had initially stolen from the facility, and the others that Steve had brought back, that there was still elements of HYDRA in the towns beyond Kronas. They had taken one town, but to get to Narva, they had to take the rest.

The SSR and the Soviets were still allied for the duration of the campaign to Narva, whether or not each entity liked it.

Peggy removed her hand from Steve's arm as Steve turned towards Philips, saying, “Understood, sir.”

She watched him leave, with the rest of the Commandos following him, and followed his brief gaze up towards where the MP was leading Bucky away to the other side of the perimeter of the camp. Her attention returned towards the Soviets as they slipped into the tent, and she followed Philips to the planning tent. Even as curious as she was to what had happened after the HYDRA super-weapon had been destroyed, she couldn't help but frown a little in concern.

Any commander like Rostov would have been reasonably justified – even if she thought it was childish to do so – to do what he had done in light of the words that Bucky had hurled. However, the words about the Russian accent that the Soviet commander had stated, as if it were an after thought, to Bucky sounded...

...almost as if it were something personally threatening to Bucky.

As Peggy entered the tent and positioned herself next to Philips at the table, facing the Soviet commander and his adjutants, she couldn't help but give a quick glance over to the far left corner of the tent. Situated near Emily and Darin was the stack of folders written in Russian. It sat beneath a few other things, as Peggy had made sure that no one else who were not Emily or Darin caught a glimpse of it.

Buried within the stack was a set of materials that she was sure that Bucky didn't even see, much less read. Otherwise, she could only assume that he wouldn't have had that slip of an accent in his Russian – at least that was what Peggy could only presumed had happened in light of Rostov's words to him. To her, she hadn't heard any different inflections within Bucky's Russian, but she knew that she was not well versed enough in Russian to pick up accents like Emily had done with German.

Yet, within the folders that seemingly had been either stolen from a Russian psychologist's notebooks detailing about coercion, subversive manipulation and the like, was something far more concerning in light of what had just happened. There were a handful of profiles and pictures that she had found buried within the papers. Her profile and picture had been among those that included Lorraine, and a few other senior members of the SSR.

All had been written and heavily annotated in Russian.

Another commonality was that the profiles were all women working in key areas within the SSR. Her thoughts back when she had initially found it, had recalled Bucky's unusual warning to her before he and Steve had departed for Kronas. That, and coupled with the sparse profiles that she had found on the Commandos after reading through the extensive notes taken about her and the other women, had worried her.

Now, it downright frightened her – not because she still couldn't figure out if Marta was a threat, but also that Rostov's parting words to Bucky had rattled the sniper. As Peggy returned her attention to the men standing around her, she couldn't help but wonder who was truly a threat to Steve and the Commandos, or the SSR as a whole – besides HYDRA in the field.

Marta, the woman who had seemingly been 'held' as a prisoner in the HYDRA facility? Or, the Soviet forces? One was suspected by Bucky, the other had seemingly threatened Bucky with just words.

It was too much of a coincidence to Peggy that the documents that had been found by Steve and Bucky just happened to be at the facility, and had most likely lying in full view of the two. It was also too much of a coincidence that a portion of it happened to be written in Russian.

Whatever the true threat was in addition to the one that HYDRA posed, Peggy knew that she had to tread extremely carefully. She had an incomplete picture, and with Bucky under watch and pending disciplinary action, she had no other choice. She had to bring Steve – however reluctant she felt about it – into the fold of her investigation.

She just hoped that in the course of rooting out the truth, neither she or Bucky would tarnish the image of Captain America.

 

~*~*~*~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alexei Shostakov was sort of borrowed in name only from his comics counterpart, as was the sniper on his team named Nicolai Krylenko. Both served as the Red Guardian (Soviet counterpart to Captain America) in the comics. Shostakov in particular, does have a small part to play in this story, other than being a Soviet platoon leader.


	3. The Whispers Like Wind

**Chapter 3: The Whispers Like Wind**

 

“That leather jacket is a good look on you, Bucky.”

Bucky looked up and over to his right, from his far away stare out into the valley where Kronas was – had been; smoke from the ruins of the infernal machine still slithering up to the sky. Though he was still in a foul mood, he could feel his spirits lift ever so slightly at just who had come to visit him in the imaginary jail within the northern perimeter of the camp. There was really no other place that Philips could have isolated him from the rest of the camp and reasonably have only one MP guarding him.

The edges of his lips quirked up in a faint smile as he saw David approach, carrying a rectangular tin box that looked like toolbox. “Thanks. Here to break me out of the invisible gaol?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light as to not worry the young man.

“We don't even use that word anymore, Bucky,” David said, eyes full of laughter.

In the months that Bucky had struck up a friendship with the engineer, he had found out that David had a far-spanning reading habit like Becca, his sister, had. Between the letters that Becca had sent him that were full of unusual words not used in the English language anymore, and David's endless knowledge of obscure texts, Bucky's vocabulary had expanded nearly ten-fold.

That still did not mean that he spoke any better than he did, especially when on the battlefield and under stress. It was only during the times where he was not out in the field, and within the SSR that he enjoyed learning new words and definitions from David, and reading over the pages of letters that Becca sent.

Her letters had become voluminous with sheets after sheets of paper filled with words and definitions, when Bucky had finally written to her about David. There had been times where he wondered why Becca just did not directly write to David, as he had even asked the engineer about it. It wasn't like he was preventing his sister from making a new friend, or vice versa. He had only gotten a shrug from David in return.

At the moment though, David stopped next to him and took a seat at the base of the tree trunk that he was currently sitting and leaning against. The tin box was carefully set down. With the infernal winter weather-making device gone, the thick grey clouds had not yet let up, but it was starting to become noticeably warmer. The patch of ground Bucky sat at had already been cleared of snow, and it was slowly receding away.

“And no, I'm not here to break you out, even though I'd like to,” David answered, as Bucky saw him glance over towards where the MP was standing a few yards away from where he was sitting.

“David...” he began, drawing the young man's attention back from the guard.

He knew that David was not strong or fast enough to overpower a guard – and that it was not in the young man's nature to pick a fight anyways. However, the gesture was touching enough to continue to slowly alleviate his foul mood.

“Sorry,” David apologized, briefly looking down and back up as he said, “Rumors are flying everywhere in camp as to why Colonel Philips has you isolated and an MP guarding you. Major Falsworth said that it was because you said something in Russian that Colonel Rostov didn't like. Agent Carter is refusing to translate anything that was exchanged, even though Captain Rogers had asked her to.”

“It wouldn't do anything good for them or Steve anyways,” he muttered, glancing down at his hands before looking over and tapped the tin box set between them with two fingers. “So if this isn't a jail break box of supplies, what is it?”

“Some food and cloths to clean your face that Captain Rogers asked me to give you. Colonel Philips has given strict orders to him and the other Commandos to not approach or interact with you. Emily was supposed to have delivered these, but she and Darin are still busy deciphering what you and Captain Rogers brought back, so I volunteered to bring it,” David answered, with his voice sounding just a tiny bit too eager to Bucky's trained ears.

“Howard doesn't have you running ragged with all the repairs and weapons maintenance, does he?”

“No, but Emily did say that Agent Carter suggested that I should bring you a cup of the best coffee that Mr. Stark's recently brewed,” David answered, shaking his head. “You should drink it while it's still relatively warm.”

“I've sampled the brew you call coffee down in the labs before, David,” Bucky said, though his tone was light and not as forced as before as his foul mood continued to recede like the snow on the ground. “If we'd easily win against HYDRA by tossing it into their faces and let them melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, I'd gladly pour it by the barrel.”

The laughter that emerged from David's lips was a welcomed sound, as Bucky opened the tin box. It was not directly spoken by the engineer, but it seemed like Peggy had slipped a message into the tin box specifically for him.

He had to give credit that David had learned quite a bit on how to conceal the intelligence-related messages that needed to be passed on between Peggy and him, Bucky, whenever necessary. It had not been his intent to recruit both Emily and David as sort-of agents, but after foiling what had happened with the HYDRA agent Alistair Brooke, he had decided that training Emily and David in general intelligence gathering was a good exercise for the two.

When he presented the idea to Peggy, she had not protested and merely nodded in agreement. The only thing she had stated to him in response to that was that she needed more trusting 'eyes' with different perspectives within the SSR besides herself and him.

Within the tin box were two haphazardly folded pieces of cloth, and two tin mugs. One of the mugs was half-way filled with the bitterly strong coffee that all of Howard's engineers, including Howard himself, liked. The other was a thick slop that didn't smell too appetizing, though it looked good enough to eat. Two slices of rock hard bread were lying to the side, hidden behind the cloths. Bucky took the two slices and placed each in a respective mug, wondering which one would soften the bread faster.

The stew-slop smelled like something that DumDum would cook, but had the consistency of what Morita usually made his stews out to be. Therefore, he could only assume that Falsworth had cooked the food – the Englishman was the second-best cook within the Commandos. Unsurprisingly – at least to him – Steve was the best cook out of the seven of them, but even he had been hard pressed to make something appetizing in the field for all seven of them.

He slid both mugs around, wondering where exactly the message was located—“It's stuck to the bottom of the coffee,” David whispered.

Bucky glanced up, over and beyond where the engineer was sitting, to see that the MP guarding him was still looking out towards the valley, rather than keep his eyes on him. He didn't mind it in this instance, as he was able to retrieve the thin sliver of paper without being noticed, but it was something that he would have to bring up to the commander of the MPs when they returned to London.

Keeping his left hand low as he took an absent sip of the coffee held in his right, he grimaced slightly at the taste before putting the mug back down. The thin, small piece of paper was gripped between the sides of his fingers as he opened it and quickly scanned what had been written:

[dtld prof cyr on snr wmn pers fnd. vet m n/c.]

_Detailed profiles in Cyrllic on senior women personnel found. Vetting of Marta not complete._

Crumpling the paper up, he slipped it into his boot, burying it within his sock. He hoped that the sweat from his foot and soon-to-be damp socks – if the weather was going to get warmer soon – would at least blur the words written.

It was not the best way to get rid of the paper, but without a lighter or smokes to conceal a lighter, he couldn't burn it. Giving it to David ran the risk of interception, as someone could notice him tossing it into a fire.

“Bad news?” David asked.

He glanced over towards the young man, but didn't immediately answer. It had been the first thing he had made sure David and Emily knew and never asked about: messages that were passed between him and Peggy. If it was something either of them needed to know, then he would inform the two. It wasn't that he wanted to keep Emily and David out of most of the espionage-like activities, it was that the two still had not mastered the so-called 'art' of deception.

It was a strong word, but it was appropriate in this instance for him to use. He knew and understood that what he and Peggy did to keep dangerous secrets from escaping into the SSR and beyond itself was difficult. The SSR was a intelligence organization – in short, a spy's haven.

He didn't think David or Emily had it in them to fully deceive others – at least not yet. It was also why he hadn't harped on their training a lot. He wasn't sure if he wanted to destroy what innocence the two had left.

Sure what had happened to the two with the entire Alistair Brooke blackmailing incident had opened their eyes. But Bucky knew that it took a certain kind of personality, of a want – not to mention ability, to just outright _lie_ – and not give away that it was a lie, or feel bad or guilty about it later.

He had been lying and concealing secrets since childhood – it was almost second nature to him. He knew that he had lied and deceived Steve to protect him; and continued to do so now, at times when it was necessary. This message – this was necessary; more so that he didn't know if there was a wolf in sheep's clothing that he and Steve had brought back.

“Sorry,” David softly apologized, bringing Bucky back out of his split-second musing.

“I'm assuming Howard has weapons lockers while in the field?” he asked instead, putting the mug back into the tin and took the one with the stew and single piece of bread up.

He hadn't had a chance to take a closer look at what else Howard had brought to the field, since the Commandos' deployment to the HYDRA facility had been fast. When he had gone to pick up his modified sniper rifle before he had left for Kronas, that had not afforded him time to take a closer look at Howard's stash.

“Lockers with alpha-numeric pad locks, yes,” David answered. “Mr. Stark had been trying to create some sort of thing that could read a fingerprint or blood sample to lock and unlock the locks. It's no where near working, but for now, that's all we have.”

“Better than traditional locks,” Bucky couldn't help but murmur, feeling his foul mood begin to return. He didn't blame David or the message from Peggy for it though – the week had already been bad enough. What Peggy had found in what he and Steve had brought back from the HYDRA facility just cemented that there was something going on here besides an offensive to supposedly stop the advance of Soviet forces.

“They're arguing for you, you know? Major Falsworth and the others,” David's statement brought him out of his dark thoughts. “Whatever you said to Colonel Rostov and his people was not worth this punishment—” David said gesturing broadly “—or the isolation that Colonel Philips has kept you in. Colonel Rostov probably deserved those words anyways.”

“Is that your opinion or theirs?” he asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.

“Mine,” David admitted, coloring slightly, despite the still lingering winter cold that made his cheeks red. “And... at least some of the Commandos. They just said it in more colorful terms.”

The edges of Bucky's lips quirked up in a slight smile, even though his mood was still falling back to the black depths of anger. He sighed as he glanced down at the mug of stew and softened bread he was holding, saying, “Honestly, I don't think I'm good company right now, David. I appreciate and thank you for the fact that you've brought food. Just listening to you talk is sort of helping me forget what happened in the past few days, but I don't think I'm going to be able to answer—”

“So don't talk, Bucky,” David interrupted, as Bucky glanced over to see him with an understanding look in his eyes. “If just listening to me talk helps you, then I'll just talk away until you start to feel better.”

The sincerity and earnestness in David's voice reminded him so much of Steve, even though David looked nothing like Steve – well, post-serum Steve. There was a carefree, light kind of tone that was slightly colored by David's experiences thus far in the war; including the Alistair Brooke blackmailing and what the young man had seen at Finow.

But David's tone had not been completely darkened – not like what he heard in Steve's voice lately. Steve wasn't jaded by the war, not like Bucky knew that he himself was. However, the enthusiastic determination within Steve seemed to have faded slightly.

“You don't have other duties to attend to?” Bucky couldn't help but ask. It wasn't that he wasn't trying to get rid of his friend, but rather that he knew that everyone had to double-up on duties in the camp, since such little personnel had been deployed here.

“Not if I can truthfully tell Colonel Philips and Mr. Stark that I was telling you about our perimeter defense guns,” David answered, giving him a brief, mischievous grin.

“You've learned well,” Bucky couldn't help but nod in approval.

“I was given excellent advice,” the engineer stated, “by a certain someone who excels in this sort of thing.”

“Flatterer,” he shot back, grinning. Bucky only realized that David was serious about his words when he looked over to see that far be it that there was no longer a humorous expression on his friend's face, but a serious one.

His own smile dropped as David said with a solemn look in his eyes, “It's the least I can do for you, Bucky.”

“David,” he began, sighing as he put the mug of stew back down. “It's—”

“Unhealthy,” the young man finished up for him, knowing why he was saying what he was saying. “I know.”

_If Steve knew, then he probably would've said the exact same words you've said, only that those words would be about you... and your own—_

_Shut up._

After all this time, Bucky had hoped that David's crush on him would have died. He had hoped that if he, Bucky, did nothing overt to fan the flames of that crush, it would dwindle. That meant that he did not tease, as he teased the girls whom he knew had a crush on him, nor anything else he usually did to inflame a girl's infatuation – except applied to David. He had hoped that just being David's friend, a somewhat all right instructor in espionage, and some times confidante to the engineer would be enough to show David that he had no romantic interest – no, that he couldn't have—

_Good job making a mess of things, Barnes._

_Your life is just one giant hypocritical ball of lies._

_Friends._

_You're such a coward, Barnes._

“I'm sorry,” he apologized after a few moments of silence, shoving his warring thoughts to the side. “Told you I wasn't good company right now,” he said, using what he felt was a paltry example of an excuse to try to distance himself even further.

“It's all right. I'd like to stay, but only if you want me to, Bucky.”

Those words seemed to slip so easily out of his friend's lips – almost as uncannily easy as something similar to what Steve would say. Except Steve usually didn't ask for permission and just stayed like the stubborn ass he was. David was asking permission, and Bucky knew that it was a way out for him. He could literally see the door held open for him to end this right here and now.

He didn't want to; not like this.

Bucky sighed again and folded his hands together as he leaned his head back, staring up at the red-green-brown pine canopy with branches still covered in a thin layer of snow. “I have a lot on my mind, David,” he said after a few moments. “But I could use the distraction from those thoughts.” He turned his head slightly to his right, a faint smile of gratitude on his face, saying, “Thanks.”

~~~

“We'll try to find and contact the family, Marta, but it may be a while before we'll hear anything,” Peggy stated.

The woman, sitting up before them in the bed she had been assigned to within the medical tent, nodded silently. “T-thank you,” Marta said after a few moments of silence.

“We've already called for a transport to get you out of here, Miss Wieczorek, but don't have an estimated time of arrival,” Philips stated, getting up from where he had been seated, listening to the governess tell them about her ordeal – or at least as much as she was willing to say about it.

“For now, you are to stay here until otherwise. Please do not leave the tent without permission. The MPs do not take kindly to strangers wandering about,” Philips continued to say as Peggy got up as well, with Steve following her lead a second after her.

“Yes, I will not,” the woman answered, nodding.

“You're safe now, Marta,” Steve said in a reassuring, kind tone.

In response to that, Peggy merely saw her nod in silence again, trying to give Steve as brave of a smile as possible before looking back down at her hands. Without any further words to the woman, the three of them left.

Outside, Philips flagged down one of the MPs, saying, “Go fetch Sergeant Barnes, and have Davenport escort him to the planning tent for his and Captain Rogers' debrief—”

“Sir,” Steve interrupted. “Please don't debrief Bucky.”

Philips glanced over, but his expression was unreadable. Peggy read worry and unhappiness as clear as day on Steve's face, as he heard him continue to say, “Just... I'll explain when we get to the tent, sir.”

“All right, Rogers,” Philips answered after a few moments of silence, nodding once in acquiescence to Steve's request.

The SSR commander returned his attention to the MP and silently nodded for the MP to be dismissed. The three of them continued through camp and ducked back into the planning tent. Those in the tent were dismissed from their stations and it was only a minute after the tent flap closed with the last of the personnel leaving, that Philips gestured ever so slightly for Steve to begin speaking.

“We were tortured,” Steve stated, as Peggy saw him curl his hands into fists. She felt the blood drain from her face as Steve continued to say, “Bucky more so than I was. They chained me up to a chair, beat me, and forced me to watch what they were doing to Bucky. They asked no questions of us, demanded nothing about our operations here – not even information about the Allied forces. They just pure and simple, tortured us because they wanted to. Because they could. Because they didn't have anything else to do. Because seeing us bleed entertained them. Hearing us scream until we couldn't even whisper gave them satisfaction.”

Steve took a deep breath and held his silence for a moment, letting his exhale try to loosen the white-knuckled fists his hands were curled into. Despite wanting to keep it professional, to not mix work with her personal life, Peggy knew that it was a little late for that.

She placed the folder she had in her hands down onto the table, stepped around the table and clasped her hands over Steve's right hand. She hoped that what little warmth was in her hands would seep into his seemingly cold hand.

“So I'm asking you, Colonel Philips,” Steve said, looking back up as Peggy felt his right hand begin to relax ever so slightly from being held in a tight fist, “to show some compassion and not ask Sergeant Barnes to do a debrief.”

Silence answered Steve's request as Peggy looked across the table to see Philips with a still unreadable expression on his face. “No questions?” Philips asked after a few moments.

“No questions, sir,” Steve answered.

“How did you and Sergeant Barnes escape?”

“They chained Bucky up in regular irons. What they used to bind me was some metal unlike anything I've encountered before,” Steve answered, though Peggy heard hesitation in his tone. It was unusual, as she knew Steve spoke with confidence whenever in front of Philips. Yet, considering the circumstances, Peggy could only imagine how difficult it was for Steve to relive the events and present them. There was nothing she could do to help Steve, except be there and remind him that there was still good in his life.

“Bucky managed to break out the irons and killed the guards who had the keys. He freed me, and we made our way through the castle. We didn't encounter anyone until we got to the room where we found those reports on Kronas. Marta was being kept in an adjacent room in a cage slightly smaller than the table. I couldn't just leave her there.”

“She'll be shipped out of the area as soon as we can secure an incoming transport, Captain,” Philips stated. “You know that I cannot spare anyone, including yourself, to get that woman out of the line of fire.”

“I understand sir,” Steve answered, though Peggy heard absolutely no inflection in his tone – as if the words were just said by rote memorization and monotony. It was gone as Steve's voice returned to a more professional tone, as he said, “Shortly thereafter, the three of us secured a motorcycle with a sidecar as an escape vehicle. We encountered the last of the HYDRA soldiers – the motorcycle riders – on our way out. My guess was that HYDRA was already responding to the breach in security after we were captured and were already sending their forces to Kronas when we escaped.”

“Describe the conditions that Miss Wieczorek was held in,” Philips stated.

“Metal cage, about the length, width, and height of the table,” Steve said, gesturing to the table before the three of them as Peggy let his hand go. She didn't return to the other side of the table to stand next to Philips though, and remained by Steve's die. “Hay as bedding with a horse's blanket. What they did to Bucky and I, I can't imagine what they did to her—”

“Medics say that she wasn't injured – no broken bones. Some fractures, and bruising around those fractures,” Philips stated. “You protected her well during your escape.”

“She wasn't injured when I found her,” Steve confirmed, nodding once. “She was able to walk, but she was extremely shaken, sir. She began crying when she realized that I wasn't one of her torturers or captors.”

“You don't think Agent Carter or I should have questioned her, Captain Rogers?”

Peggy noticed that Steve's jaw had tightened, as he considered his words. It was clear to her that he wanted to say that he agreed with the fact that neither of them should have questioned Marta, even with him present. It was also clear to her that he was trying to not get into trouble with the words he really wanted to say.

Before she could intervene though, Philips spoke up, saying, “That is all for the debrief, Captain. I'll take your words about debriefing Sergeant Barnes into consideration, but I do have one more question for you. In your professional opinion, Captain Rogers, do you think Sergeant Barnes can still serve as an effective member of your team, or within the SSR?”

“Sir,” Peggy heard Steve begin, a slight protest coloring his tone. “Bucky and I, we made a promise—”

“Son, I don't give a damn about whatever hell promise you and your closest friend made with each other,” Philips interrupted, sounding irritated. “If you cannot give me an objective opinion as a strike team leader, I will take the necessary steps to remove and ship Sergeant Barnes back home.”

Peggy saw Steve's jaw tighten again for a moment as he silently considered Philips' words. “I don't know, sir,” Steve answered after a few moments.

“Then you have until we return to Headquarters to give me your answer, Captain. Dismissed. Carter, stay.”

“Sir,” Steve spoke up, not even taking a step away from the table. “It would help if I would be allowed to talk to Buc—Sergeant Barnes.”

Peggy glanced back and forth between the two, but Philips didn't answer, and merely waited for Steve to leave. After what felt like a minute of tense silence, Steve finally turned and left, giving Peggy's left hand a gentle squeeze in thanks before he walked out.

“Carter,” Philips sharply stated a few moments after the tent flap closed.

“Sir,” she answered, almost snapping to as she had seen Steve and the other Commandos do with the tone that Philips had used.

“Inform Corporal Reed that he is to escort Miss Wieczorek to the north perimeter, but only to there. Our guest is not allowed to wander elsewhere,” Philips stated.

“Sir?” she questioned, puzzled at the sudden, and wholly unexpected change of heart from her commander.

“I want you to unobtrusively observe from a distance, as to how Sergeant Barnes reacts to her,” Philips stated in a low, quiet and serious tone.

Peggy blinked, surprise rooting her to the spot.

“Carter?”

“Y-yes, sir,” she answered. “May I ask why?”

“Because I want to know why the hell does that woman look like my secretary, Lorraine, Carter,” Philips stated. “MI6 had eyeballs on this region since even before the Soviets began their push into the area. No where in the intelligence they sent us was there any evidence of a HYDRA base here. The only 'base' they had listed was a forward operations that the Soviets had set up about three months before Leningrad had been taken. That base's coordinates is here—”

Peggy saw him point to where the marker for the HYDRA base was. She paled at the implications of what her commander was saying, what Steve had briefed them on in terms of what those at the facility had done to him and Bucky, and what she had discovered among the documents brought back from the facility.

“Sir,” she began, gesturing to the folder that she had left on the table. “What Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes brought back didn't just contain the engineering drawings of the device at Kronas. There were also psychological reports written in Cyrillic.”

She saw him open the folder and rifle through the first few pages as she continued to say, “Almost all senior personnel within the SSR had detailed descriptions – physical and mental – written within those reports. All of them were women, including myself and Lorraine. The Commandos also had reports, but very little compared to the wealth of information in the personnel reports.”

Philips was silent for a very long few minutes as his eyes flickered back and forth over the reports. Peggy knew that he couldn't read a word within the untranslated reports, but he was studying the handwriting, the details of that, and just how many pages accompanied each report.

“Have Stark and his team scrub all of our radios and lines going in and out of Headquarters after we return, Carter,” Philips stated, closing the files, and folder before pushing it towards her. “That includes all of the radio equipment that all teams are using. We have to assume that everything going in and out, including the equipment in camp, has been compromised since Alistair Brooke was killed – possibly even before.”

“Sir, would it not be prudent to release Sergeant Barnes from isolation then—” she began, knowing that dividing the Commandos up at the moment was not doing them any favors. Not with what was being unraveled in front of both her and her commander.

It was quite possible that their deployment out here to seemingly 'help' the Soviet efforts take Narva had all been a front – that the Soviets were working with HYDRA. It now made sense to her as to why Philips had gone with the Soviet forces to Kronas, when he did not understand a word of Russian. Rather than observe as the commander of the Commandos and deploy them where necessary within Kronas, Philips had been there to _watch_ the reactions of the Soviets based upon the MI6 intelligence reports.

“I want to see how our allies react, Carter,” Philips stated, looking thoroughly annoyed. “I also want to see how Barnes reacts to Miss Wieczorek. Don't think that I'm not aware of whatever the hell is going on between Barnes and Lorraine, Carter. Don't think that I'm also not aware that you've recruited him as your field agent. I'm going to assume you've already somehow informed him of the contents of what this folder contains.”

Peggy glanced over at the folder as Philips tapped it with a finger, before returning her attention to her commander. “Then you know how valuable Sergeant Barnes is, not to me, but to this organization, sir,” she stated. “Separating him from the Commandos – from Steve, and sending him home—”

“May end up being the only way the SSR will be able to get to the bottom of whatever the hell this 'alliance' that the Soviets may supposedly have with HYDRA, Carter,” he interrupted.

Philips placed his hands down on the table, leaning slightly forward as he scanned the map, before looking back up. “I know a personal threat when I hear one – even in a foreign language. Thanks to his efforts in stalling and stymieing Lorraine's reports, I don't know what the hell can compromise him, or some of the other agents, personnel, and strike teams. But, it looks like his pressure point has to do something with whatever the hell accent he has with his Russian, Agent Carter. Or have you mistranslated Rostov's parting shot?”

“No, sir,” she answered, pressing her lips together in slight anger.

The anger was not only for herself, but for what Philips was doing – had been doing since before the SSR began their war against HYDRA. She knew that she couldn't hold on to that anger though; she'd be a hypocrite herself if she went against the words that she had told Bucky during the whole Alistair Brooke incident. That, to sometimes do their jobs to save people, they had to compromise their own morals.

In a way, Philips was right – but only in that there were some information that needed to be known at the highest level about those who worked in the SSR. They could not afford anyone else to be compromised, not especially since they were the premiere espionage organization in the world, and the only ones capable of fighting against HYDRA.

The Alistair Brooke incident had shown just how easy it was to get at them and collapse their structure from inside out – and that had not been through the strike teams, senior SSR personnel, or any one of importance. It had been through an engineer, one of Howard's team.

“Sir,” she began after taking a deep breath to focus and calm her racing thoughts down. “We need to go back to the facility. We need to go back, find everything that we can about it and destroy it before we're further compromised.”

The look that Philips gave her was not shrewd, but it was slightly unsettling before he said, “I'll take your suggestion under advisement, Carter. I trust that you will not breathe a word to anyone else, including Sergeant Barnes, about what was discussed.”

“I will not, sir,” she answered, grateful that Philips was not dismissing her request out of hand and just call in an airstrike on the facility.

“Dismissed.”

* * *

Movement near the MP guarding him caused Bucky to glance up, as David paused in his explanation and turned as well. He couldn't help but frown slightly as he saw the woman – Marta – standing next to another MP, as the MPs were discussing something. She looked better than the last time he had seen her, but still had a uncertain look on her face. However, he thought that because she was a civilian within a sort-of military base, she would have been confined to somewhere else. Unless the northern perimeter was the only place—

“She looks like Lorraine,” David's softly stated comment briefly spun Bucky out of his thoughts.

Or... as Bucky's thought back to Peggy's message, he realized that perhaps he should take the opportunity to get to know Marta better. Hopefully he would be able to vet her either as a spy who just happened to look like Lorraine, or an unfortunate victim who got caught in HYDRA's machinations.

“Best get back to Howard and those locks, David,” he stated, putting the empty cups back into the tin box, ignoring the slightly puzzled look that the engineer threw him. As he closed the box and handed it to David, he stood up.

A moment later, David stood as well, as Bucky gave him a reassuring smile, saying, “Thanks for keeping me company, and tell Steve, thanks for the food and cloths.”

Understanding dawned over the young man's eyes as he finally realized the implications of Bucky's initial words to him. “I will, Bucky,” David answered, nodding as he glanced back towards where the two MPs and Marta were before returning his attention to him. “Good luck.”

There were some choice words that Bucky wanted to throw at that last facetious remark, but Bucky kept his mouth closed and settled for merely giving the young man a mild look. His mood was no longer a foul pit of anger, thanks to the engineer. With a much clearer head, he watched as David approached the small group, nodding to the MP who had been guarding him, before turning back and gestured to him.

Bucky silently waved his hand towards the group in response, and saw Marta's eyes become a little less uncertain with the gesture. To his relief, the MP that had accompanied Marta, walked with the woman as they approached him, apparently having gotten permission from the other MP. Had both MPs allowed Marta to approach on her own, then disciplinary action or not, he was going to have some words with the MPs.

“I'm glad to see that you're doing better, Miss,” Bucky said as the MP stopped five steps away from where he was, and allowed Marta and him a slight semblance of privacy to talk. It was a little moot though, since the MP was close enough to over hear whatever they were going to say to each other.

“Thank you, Sergeant Barnes,” Marta said, smiling. “< _Do you understand French, sir?_ >” she asked.

Bucky blinked, but decided to humor the woman as he glanced over towards the MP and saw the puzzled expression on the MP's face. The MP didn't understand French at all, which meant that Marta either had picked right, or decided to gamble in speaking in a language other than her halting English.

“< _Is that what you taught the children you tutored?_ >” he asked.

“< _Some._ >” she answered. “< _The family expected their children to know some of the classical languages, such as French and Latin, besides their native German tongue. Your French is good, sir. Might I ask where you learned it?_ >”

“< _Here and there. I'm not as fluent as Captain Rogers, but I do like picking up an understanding of a multitude of different languages here in Europe._ >” he answered, deciding that the truth was better than him trying to make up a story on the fly.

He knew that lying would be easy, but the precision of her answers, even in French, was a little unsettling. Lorraine had the same skill set in languages as what Marta had just stated as her skill set. He had never paid attention to Lorraine's accent whenever she spoke French to him, but he had to bet that it would have sounded exactly like Marta's French accent.

“< _Might I ask what other languages do you know?_ >” she asked.

Bucky didn't answer immediately as he held up a hand for her to wait and called out to the MP, saying, “Anderson, is it okay for her to be here?”

“Agent Carter says that Colonel Philips has given her permission to stay around here. Her transport isn't here yet, Barnes,” the MP answered. “Nothing was said that she couldn't keep you company. I can't move further away though. Orders are orders. Sorry.”

“I'm sorry about that, Marta,” he said to her in English, waving away his concern about privacy from the MP listening to them. “< _I'm supposed to be isolated, due to circumstances._ >”

“< _If I may ask, what circumstances?_ >”

“< _Well, if you want to, we can continue talking about languages._ >” he answered, ignoring her question about what exactly he was up here for. He didn't gesture for her to take a seat and merely opened an arm up, hand pointed towards the edge of the cliff that overlooked into the valley of towns.

“< _I would very much like that. It has been a while since I had the chance to converse with a fellow linguist. To do so with you, who protected me, will be enjoyable to pass the time._ >” she answered.

Bucky managed to keep the kind facade on his face, but his thoughts were racing. Apart from the fact that she had completely ignored his mention of Steve before, along with the fact that she had specifically named him as the one who protected her when she had been riding on Steve's motorcycle, he was fairly certain of what exactly she was.

_It has been a while since I had the chance to spar with a fellow linguist._

Those words that haunted his thoughts at the moment had not been said by Marta. They had been said by Lorraine, and in a completely different context. Bucky settled down beside her, the view of Kronas and the valley below covered in a light misting fog with the rapid change and rise in temperature. There was a pleasant expression on the woman's face, but Bucky thought he could see the sharp, calculating look behind those light eyes of hers.

Drawing his left hand back for a moment as he gestured with his right arm and hand out towards the valley, he began speaking while tapping out his quick message in Morse code on his back.

He hoped that Peggy was somewhere in camp watching him. He wasn't sure if Marta's 'training' had been completed, but if he hadn't verbally 'sparred' with Lorraine for the past ten months, he wouldn't have picked up all the subtle clues about what Marta was: a sl—

~~~

“Sleeper.”

Peggy immediately pulled the binoculars from her eyes as she stepped away from where she had been crouched behind the row of tents that were their temporary quarters within the camp. Ice, colder than what it had been here when the HYDRA weather device had been active, lined her stomach. She turned and began to walk towards the planning tent, Philips needed to know _now_ —

“Peggy?”

She looked up, stopping as she realized she had nearly ran into Steve. It was unlike her to not be aware of where she was going, and the concern Steve had for her shone through his eyes. “Steve,” she said, knowing that she was failing in trying to keep a pleasant expression on her face.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, gesturing to the binoculars in her hands.

“Bird watching. Just wondering if I could see any, now that spring is here again and summer will probably be riding shortly on spring's heels,” she answered, knowing that it was not the best of excuses that she had made up before. “And worrying over what you and Sergeant Barnes brought back.”

“You think HYDRA has more of these super-weapons?” Steve asked, as he walked by her side and back to the main area of the camp.

“Possibly,” she answered, and it was the truth. “Colonel Philips thinks that the force that attacked the Soviets from both sides was too large for one town,” she stated. “If the shock wave from the destruction of that weapon hadn't flattened the area and given our allies the advantage, they might have been completely overwhelmed. We were just lucky that these sets of HYDRA soldiers were mainly using conventional weapons.”

“Or unlucky,” she heard Steve mutter, before he suddenly stopped. Peggy stopped as well, as she saw realization dawn upon his face. He turned to completely face her, saying, “Philips wants to go back to that facility to get more information. Is that it?”

“Yes,” she answered, disliking the fact that she had to keep secret about the rest of what she knew, from Steve. However, she knew that what Steve had realized was something that would eventually be known to him and the rest of the Commandos. She picked up his left hand in her hands, saying, “Steve, it's—”

“So we go back,” Steve said, shaking his head, but did not withdraw his hand. “Me, Bucky, DumDum and the rest will go back. We'll sneak in—”

“I'll be going in place of Sergeant Barnes, Steve,” she stated, giving him a firm look. Philips had informed her of his approval of the mission, just before she had taken the binoculars to see what Bucky was unraveling about Marta Wieczorek.

“What?” Steve exclaimed, looking at her with some confusion. “Philips is benching Bucky for the mission?”

“Yes,” she answered, but let go of his hand and stepped directly in front of him when he made to stomp directly towards the planning tent to most likely protest the decision. “There needs to be someone who can speak Russian in the camp, Steve. Barnes is more fluent in the language than I am. Since Colonel Rostov will be returning for further discussions of what information we've analyzed from what the two of you had initially brought back, he needs to be here while I'm traveling with the team.”

Steve remained silent for a few long moments before shaking his head slightly, saying, “He's not going to like this.”

“Neither will Colonel Rostov and his staff,” Peggy answered, sympathizing. “But I know what we specifically need to look for in that facility, Steve. It's for the better.”

“Is there an insertion plan yet, Peggy?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she answered, stepping out of his way. They resumed walking, but it was now without a hurried pace towards the planning tent. “You've seen more of the castle than Dugan or the rest of us have, so we're hoping that you might have some ideas on how to sneak back in.”

She saw him nod, giving her no indication or signs that what he had briefed her and Philips on, on the ordeal that he and Bucky had endured, affected him. She knew it did, and she hated the fact that he tried so hard to hide it from others. Yet, at the moment, there was a need to project confidence. HYDRA and their Soviet allies – if true – could not know just how rattled the SSR was.

Nor could either entity know just how much the SSR knew that their shadows moved.

* * *

_Later..._

 

It was difficult to miss anyone who came to talk to him, especially since there were so little trees along the cliff side. Yet, when Bucky heard the light tread of footsteps approaching, he opened his eyes, shaking himself out of his light doze. To his surprise, he saw Steve approaching, having gotten permission from the MP guarding him to pass.

“Steve,” he greeted, noticing that there was an unusually serious look on his best friend's face. “Something happened?”

“No,” Steve answered, waving for him to sit back down, as he took a seat next to him, leaning against the base of the tree trunk.

Steve looked tired, but it wasn't a sort of physical exhaustion that he had seen earlier when they were returning from Kronas. Bucky knew that they had both been extremely lucky that neither had been injured or worse yet, killed at Kronas. Both of them had charged into that fight exhausted from the escape that was compounded by the mental and physical torture that they had gone through at the facility.

The light sleep he had fallen into after Marta had left, was not enough, but he had to take what little he could get at the moment. Marta was still in and around the camp, as he had not heard any jeep pull into camp to take her away. With her still here, he couldn't afford to allow himself to fall completely asleep.

“Thought Philips wasn't letting you guys come visit or talk to me?” he asked, shoving his suspicions about Marta to the side for the moment. Steve didn't need to know what he thought about the woman who had supposedly been the governess for whatever children or family had lived in that castle.

“He gave me an exception,” Steve answered, glancing over at him while shrugging slightly. “Only after Rostov and his adjutants left though.”

“So Philips isn't serious about the disciplinary action?” Bucky asked, puzzled.

What he knew of their commander was that Philips never joked about anything that had to do with maintaining order among the SSR. Sure Philips was a difficult commander to get along with, but with the nearly fantastical things they were fighting against that HYDRA threw at them, Bucky was a little glad that they had a level-headed commander heading up the SSR.

However, there was at least one time that the Commandos had discovered that Philips had an extremely dry sense of humor. It didn't make Philips anymore sympathetic to them, nor did it improve their relationship with their commander, but it made him more human.

“Only if a star's wish was true, Buck,” Steve said, the serious expression on his face briefly melting into the familiar small smile. It was short-lived though, as he heard and saw Steve sigh, before saying, “Talk to me, Bucky.”

“What about?” he asked, though his question was not meant to be facetious at all.

“I may not understand all of what you said to Rostov, but I think I understand enough to know why you said what you said. I agree with it, but I wanna know; are you okay?”

“Destroy a town to possibly save more towns? Kill one to save thousands? Poison a well to save a region?” Bucky couldn't help but bitterly state, glancing down at his hands. “It's a fucking choice that I wish I never have to keep making, Steve. I hate what HYDRA is making us do, and I fucking hate this war.”

_And yet, I'm drawn to the shadows of this war, because..._

_It's...refreshingly thrilling..._

_You're a complete hypocrite, Barnes._

Bucky looked up as he felt the brief pressure of Steve's hand resting on his right shoulder. He shook his head slightly, saying, “I just can't _stand_ to see someone else, like Rostov, try to save a weapon that has caused so much death and destruction. It's what I was yelling at him about, Steve. He was being a dumb asshole and well... I kind of lost it.”

“If you hadn't said it, and if I knew Russian a little better, I would have said the same words, Bucky,” Steve answered, gently squeezing his shoulder in reassurance and solidarity.

“Complete with all the filthy words I added in there?” Bucky asked, looking slightly amused, raising his right hand to perform the same gesture to Steve's left shoulder.

“Every single word,” Steve answered in affirmation, nodding as his smile that reminded Bucky of the dawn, appeared on his face.

Bucky couldn't help but laugh a little, feeling happier than he had been in a while. To his disappointment though, the brilliant smile didn't last as the initial seriousness that he had seen in Steve's expression return. “Bucky,” Steve began, looking a little concerned. “What did Rostov say to you? What was his parting shot? You looked like you'd seen a ghost. Is everything really okay?”

Bucky let go of Steve's shoulder, removing his hand as he raised it slightly to gently bat Steve's arm away. “Nothing,” he answered, seeing the flash of dissatisfaction appear in Steve's eyes. “It was nothing—”

“Bucky.”

It was very rare that Steve ever called him out on trying to evade with his answers, as it was not something he did often. Most of the time, it was Steve who always tried to worm his shy way out of some answer that seemed to embarrass him. “Leave it alone, Steve,” he answered, all good humor that he had felt moments earlier completely erased.

What the Soviet commander had stated to him as a parting shot was something that no one needed to know or dig into. Peggy was probably the only one among those SSR and Commandos who understood what Rostov had said, but she had no context for the words. He was silently thankful to her though, for not even translating to Steve what had been said. No one needed to know more about his family, other than he had a mother and four sisters, and a father who had died when he was ten.

His best friend was silent for a few long moments. However, just as Bucky thought that Steve was going to drop it, Steve said, “All right. But tell me this, Bucky: Peggy said that what reports we brought back from that office is incomplete. She believes that there's more to be had, and so does Philips. This time, we're sneaking back in, since it looks like our Soviet allies are occupying the majority of what's left of the HYDRA soldiers from Kronas.”

“We're going back?”

“We are. You're not,” Steve stated.

“What?” Bucky exclaimed, seeing that Steve was not joking about not going on the mission with the rest of the Commandos. “Steve—”

“Philips' orders, Buck,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Peggy is going with us. She knows what to look for. You're staying to translate whatever is needed when Rostov returns for the intelligence debrief from the rest of what we've collected the first time.”

“Uh, Steve... Rostov tried to punch me,” Bucky pointed out, blinking in completely bafflement as to why their commander would even allow him to stand in the same tent as the Soviet commander.

“I pointed that out to him,” Steve answered, shrugging and shaking his head.

“Christ,” he couldn't help but mutter. “And I thought Philips was above pulling shit like this. He fucking wants me on my best behavior after what Rostov said—”

“Maybe we'll be back before Peggy's analysts will be done with their analyses,” Steve offered.

“Yeah, and maybe I'll swim the entire length of the Rhine without pausing, punk,” he answered.

“You probably can now.”

“Not helpful, Steve,” he shot back. In a quieter tone, and because Steve's words stirred uncertainty within him, he asked, “How did Falsworth and the others... react to...”

“If they've realized what we both realized that day, they're not saying anything, Bucky,” Steve answered, patting him on the back. “All they've said was that they wanted to thank you for sniping fast enough to save their lives. I don't think they care either way about what Zola's done to you. You're still Bucky, still Sergeant James Barnes to them, and nothing's going to change that.”

“Oh,” he quietly answered, though the smile he wanted to give to Steve was an effort that he couldn't seem to conjure up to display. “Thanks.”

Steve rested his hand on his back again, but this time, Steve leaned in slightly, looking at him squarely in the eyes. “What else is bothering you, Bucky?”

“It was too easy, Steve,” Bucky said, deciding to outright say what he was thinking, rather than let Steve continue to think that he was not happy about being left behind. He wasn't, but he understood why it needed to be done. “Our escape,” he continued after a moment, seeing Steve frown slightly. “It was too easy. It felt too easy.”

“You don't think we should go back?” Steve asked.

“I don't know,” he admitted. “If your girl thinks there's more information to be had, then we need it. Who the hell knows what other weapons this secret HYDRA base could have developed absent of whatever Schimidt and Zola have been doing.”

“We have to try, Buck.”

Bucky made a frustrated noise, saying, “I know, Steve. I know, and _every_ part of me thinks that it's a trap, going back.”

“Why?” Steve asked.

He looked over at him, shaking his head before looking back down at the ground. “Just... avoid going through the kitchens again Steve. That place... it's just... wrong...”

“The place where we found the information on Kronas and Marta?” Steve quietly asked. Bucky didn't answer him, even though he wanted to out right tell him that the woman they rescued was almost certain a HYDRA sleeper agent.

“Yeah,” he answered.

Steve believed in the good of people, and Bucky did not want to shatter that illusion. Steve was the stars-and-stripes, the good that inspired people to be better; not the shadows that he, Bucky, lived in. He did the things that Steve couldn't do – suspect, question, and doubt every single person they came across. The shadows were like fire, and to make sure Steve stayed in the light and untouched, Bucky was willing to burn in those flames.

He would remain here at camp, even though the mission that the Commandos and Peggy were about to be deployed on was incredibly risky. However, he was not going to just play translator for the Soviets who hated him. He silently vowed to himself to make sure that until Marta left, she did not sabotage anything – not on his watch.

 

~*~*~*~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random Note: My head-canon (does not follow comics, sort of follows movies) in the languages that Steve, Bucky, and Peggy know (and their fluency):  
> \- Steve: English (native), French (fluent for speaking, reading, writing), German (fluent in speaking, reading), Italian (only understands when spoken to).  
> \- Bucky: English (native), Russian (native), French (somewhat fluent for speaking), German (only understands when spoken to).  
> \- Peggy: English (native), French (native), Russian (fluent in speaking, reading, and writing), German (fluent in speaking, reading, and writing).


	4. The Memories Like Shards

**Chapter 4: The Memories Like Shards**

_HYDRA facility, a few miles away from the SSR Field Headquarters..._

 

Peggy kept the rifle pointed, but not directly in front of her, as it was Steve she was following. He had taken point everywhere they had traversed in this enormous castle. What she and the other Commandos had covered in their first deployment into the HYDRA facility paled in comparison through the room-by-room, corridor-after-corridor hunt they were going through.

They were all wary through, as there had been absolutely no sign of any HYDRA guards or otherwise within the facility, or outside of it. Even Morita, Dunne, and Pinkerton's traversal and scouting of the perimeter of the facility had yielded nothing. It seemed that the Soviets were truly occupying HYDRA's forces, and though a part of her felt guilty for that, she knew that they had to take advantage of that.

“Steve, let me see the map, please,” she whispered as they emerged back out into the main corridor that led to several other areas within the castle.

Steve nodded and silently gestured for the others to spread out and listen for any sounds of approaching HYDRA soldiers. They could have gone to one of the many empty rooms they had searched through, but it would have severely limited their options for escape, if HYDRA found them.

With Steve's hand-drawn map of what he could remember of the layout of the castle, unfurled and held against the wall by both Steve and her, Peggy's eyes roamed the labeled and unlabeled areas. Some of the areas where they had no intelligence on what it had contained, had been filled by the reports retrieved when Steve and Bucky had escaped.

This was HYDRA, and even though they had some predictability when it came to anticipating their actions, this particular offshoot of the organization felt a little more devious and sinister. She was quite sure that the files, the information, the proof they were looking for were not in a traditional or conventional place. This was a castle – ancient and old – and she was sure that there was at least one hidden passage in a castle of this size.

The only thing they needed to figure out though, was where was the least likeliest place for a secret passage entrance to be unobtrusively carved into.

* * *

_SSR Field Headquarters..._

 

“This is unbearable. I take offense to this, Colonel Philips. Please remove this man and bring the woman back to translate,” Bucky translated to Philips with almost no inflection in his tone. He was not looking at the ground though, but kept his eyes on Rostov, who was standing on the other side of the table, glowering at him.

“If Colonel Rostov has a problem with whomever I employ as a translator, he can go get his intelligence reports from somewhere else,” Philips stated. “The SSR has better things to do than remain here in Estonia.”

Bucky frowned in slight concern. He glanced over at his commander and quietly asked, “Sir? You really want me to translate that?”

“Every word, Sergeant,” Philips answered, not even sparing him a glance as he shuffled through another report before placing a red marker on a spot near Narva.

Seeing that he had no other choice, Bucky dutifully translated every word that Philips had answered back to Russian. The inevitable explosion of anger from Rostov never manifested, though he did see Shostakov raise an eyebrow. The platoon commander's look was directed at Rostov instead of Philips. Rostov had not given a reason yet as to why a low-ranking platoon commander was present in the meeting besides him and two of the Soviet commander's adjutants.

Rostov grumbled something in Russian that Bucky barely caught. He mentally winced at what the commander had said, but translated it back to English for Philips. To his relief, Philips didn't answer in the same manner again, and merely began presenting the rest of the information Peggy and her team had deciphered and analyzed.

After about two hours, it seemed everything was done and completed in terms of information, questions, and potential strategy that the Soviets were going to deploy for their taking of the other towns. Rostov had not requested the Commandos to help, but he did ask the whereabouts.

“Sir,” Bucky said, deciding to loosely translate the gist if the Soviet commander's question instead of a direct word-for-word as he had been doing for the past two hours. “Colonel Rostov would like to know where the Commandos have been deployed to.”

“Since he's already stated that he doesn't need Commando help, that's none of his business,” Philips bluntly answered.

Bucky blinked, shifting his eyes back and forth between Philips and Rostov, waiting for his commander to put the answer in more diplomatic terms, or tell him to not say those words. No order for the modification of the answer came after a few moments, and thus Bucky returned his attention to Rostov, translating the words.

Rostov's answer was a little unexpected, as Bucky translated, “Then he will be leaving Shostakov here in camp. Due to the explosion of the device destroying all radio equipment within the battalion, it is necessary for him to deploy Shostakov and his men in this manner to act as a relay.”

Philips remained silent, his expression completely unreadable before he nodded once, saying, “Your man will be put to work though. No one in the camp loiters without a purpose.”

“That is acceptable, Colonel Philips,” Bucky translated.

No more words were exchanged. Rostov, his adjutants, and Shostakov left, with the battalion commander murmuring some words to the platoon commander softly enough that Bucky couldn't catch it. He couldn't help but frown slightly in response to Philips' words that Shostakov would be put to work. There were far too many things in camp that really should not be examined by those not of the SSR. It was one of the reasons why he could only assume Philips had also sent Marta to the north perimeter of the camp – the only other isolated area that was not the medical tent.

“Have a seat, Sergeant Barnes.”

Bucky immediately snapped out of his musings and shoved them to the side. It was not a request from Philips, but an order.

Obediently, Bucky sat down, resting his hands on the table in a slightly casual, but alert fashion. He didn't dare copy what Philips had done with his hands – that was, folding them together. He knew that with the unspecified disciplinary action hanging over him, Philips could potentially just discharge him and send him home; he wouldn't be able to re-enlist.

Philips remained silent for what felt like a minute, before bluntly saying, “You'll have one chance to answer truthfully, Sergeant. What you say will affect whether or not you remain here and in the Army. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” he answered, as an uneasy feeling welled up in his stomach.

“Agent Carter translated your exchange with Colonel Rostov, including the last words he directed at you,” Philips stated. “What was Rostov threatening you with? Why did he think your Russian accent was unusual?”

“Sir,” Bucky began, trying to shove the uneasy feeling away, “what I translated today was the truth from what Colonel Rostov said—”

“Son, I don't give a damn about today,” Philips interrupted. “You're compromised, Barnes. I am _this_ close to shipping you back home – if your removal from this war, this front, and this organization will make sure that it survives.”

“I'm not compromised, sir,” he stated, anger creeping into his tone. “Colonel Rostov only pointed out that my accent was unusual because it is. You know I grew up in Brooklyn, sir. You know that New York City is a hotbed of immigrants. It's where I picked up the accent and some of my Russian. I've been trying to keep it consistent, so that I might be better understood. Sir.”

“Then why react the way you reacted, Sergeant?” Philips questioned, tone still hard and unrelenting. Before Bucky could answer, Philips continued, saying, “The way I see it, Rostov personally threatened you. Somehow your accent is not only unusual, even if what you say is true, but that _he_ finds it threatening.”

Tense silence hung in the tent between the two of them. The sounds of the camp filtered through, providing some noise so that the silence wasn't completely silent, but neither did it contribute to the continued growing hostility within the tent.

Bucky clenched his jaw ever so slightly. He knew that saying a half-truth as he had done moments ago would not convince Philips to let him remain in the SSR, much less the US Army. Even if he did tell the truth, it sounded even worse than the multitude of lies that he tried to spin up like a windstorm in his thoughts. Would Philips even believe him, no matter what he said?

But, he had made a promise; a promise to Steve – to be there with him, until the end of the line.

He could not keep that promise if he was shipped home with no hope of re-enlistment. He just didn't know if revealing the truth to Philips would condemn not only himself, but his family as well. He unclenched his jaw and sighed. He had to tell the truth – because he knew that he couldn't live with himself if something happened to Steve, and he could have been there to prevent it.

Bucky glanced at his hands, slowly uncurling them as well before looking up and over at the SSR commander. “Sir,” he began, keeping his tone as respectful as he could. “I learned Russian from my mother while growing up in the Whitechapel area of London. Specifically, her Russian accent was already unusual because back then; it marked her as an immigrant from Petrograd. Or Leningrad, after the overthrow of the Tsar. She stopped speaking and teaching me the language after we moved to America.”

Philips remained silent, and there was nothing on his face to indicate that what Bucky had said affected him. “Your mother, she was related to the Tsar, wasn't she?”

Bucky silently nodded, before murmuring, “Distantly. She escaped before the revolutionaries could capture her.”

“As did several others of relation,” Philips stated. “I was involved with some of their resettlement in the States. And—” the SSR commander lifted several layers of maps layered on top of each other on the table, and pulled out a thin folder before pushing it towards him “—I got to know their pursuers really well.”

“Sir?” Bucky questioned, hesitatingly taking the folder and opened it to see that there was one sheet within the folder. The paper itself was yellowed, and the writing faded, but it was still legible. His eyes traced down the list of names and the things they had done, until they paused on one particular name:

[Anton Rostov – one of ten executioners of the Tsar and his immediate family. Illegal entrance into US through Louisiana on April 10th, 1927. Captured and deported on April 17th, 1927, Virginia.]

“Rostov,” he couldn't help but whisper, closing the folder as he pushed it to the side. It had just been his dumb luck that he just happened to lose the American accent within his Russian in front of a Bolshevik officer who had murdered the Tsar and his immediate family.

All because he couldn't keep his damn mouth shut, and his anger under control.

“What did your father do?”

He blinked, and looked up. Philips' tone was far from conversational and still contained an interrogative tone. “He worked for Scotland Yard. After solving the copycat Jack the Ripper case, he moved the family to New York so he could work with the Feds on ways to stop bootlegging. He was killed by the New Jersey mob when I was ten, sir.”

Silence answered him, as he saw Philips studying him with unreadable eyes. “Sir,” he spoke up after a moment, knowing that what he had said in the past few minutes earned him a one-way boat trip back to New York and the life of a civilian. “When will I be discharged and shipped back home?”

“The decision on whether or not you will be discharged from service will be made after we return to Headquarters, and when Captain Rogers gives me his report on your fitness for duty,” Philips stated. “You are dismissed for now, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir,” he answered, getting up and walking out of the tent without a glance back.

Outside, it was sunny, but it was still a little on the chilly side. However, all of the snow was gone, and there were signs that things were slowly becoming green again. The chirps of birds, along with the murmurs of the MPs going about their duties filled the air. The sounds of something being hammered rang through the camp, as Bucky's feet carried him towards the tent where Howard had set up his small engineering shop.

“Sarge,” Howard greeted as Bucky stopped at the entrance to the makeshift workshop. He was well aware that the MP assigned to keep watch over him whenever he was not in the planning tent, was standing a little ways away, attempting to give him some privacy in conversations.

“Stark,” he answered, glancing slightly down to see what exactly the inventor was hammering out. It didn't look like much, except that it was a piece of curved metal, pockmarked with dents from the hammer. “Looks like you're trying to take out your frustrations on that poor piece of metal.”

Howard laughed, shaking his head slightly as he said, “In a way, yes, but it looks like we needed to replace a component within the perimeter gun that jammed yesterday.” Bucky saw him gesture to the piece of metal, saying, “It's a little crude, but it'll get the job done.”

“Need help carrying it?” he asked, as Howard put the hammer down.

“Bad time being translator for Philips?” Howard asked, grinning slightly. “Bet you want an excuse to escape from that, don't you?”

“Whatever you can do, I'll take it,” he answered, nodding in agreement.

It wasn't that he wanted to continue translating, but that the morning's ordeal with the back and forth between Philips and Rostov was something that he really did not want to experience again. The hostility, disdain, and contempt that he heard dripping from Rostov's tone while the commander spoke in Russian was punishment enough. He knew that he had been on his best behavior while translating though. Philips' words afterwards to him had not given any sort of indication to his fate in the SSR, but he hoped that his commander would take that into account.

“All right,” Howard said, grinning slightly as he placed the hammer down and went over to the main table to pick up something small, handing over to him. “Still in work, but I think its sort of ready to be tested. Let me know if you start getting dizzy though.”

Bucky gingerly took what looked to be a domino mask in Howard's hand, and flipped it back and forth for a moment. The eye holes that the mask had seemed to be layered in some kind of thin glass that didn't seem to affect the weight of the entire mask. Shrugging slightly, he put it on and adjusted it so the eye holes were properly aligned.

To his amazement, everything inside the makeshift laboratory tent immediately changed. Gone was the drab olive or grey colors of the tins and beige crates. They were replaced with what looked like a palette of inverted colors that Steve sometimes colored his cartoons in, haloed with a slight shimmer. Even the glass tubes that held whatever experiments that the engineers were running, were of a different color.

“Wow,” he couldn't help but exclaim as he glanced over at Howard. All of the inanimate objects he saw were inverted, but Howard remained the same – beige trousers, dark boots, white lab, striped tie, pale shirt, coat, dark-haired, and fair-skinned. There was the same halo around him as the objects though.

“Really amazing, right?” Howard said, grinning.

“What... how? What is this for?” Bucky asked, as he took a couple of steps over to the hammer and curved piece of metal, running his hand across the metal. It didn't escape his notice that he saw what looked to be a ghostly visage of his hand on the hammer, before it moved a moment later to where his hand was currently touching the metal piece.

“There were some lens materials that I was trying to improve upon and make it more light weight. I was hoping to add what I call 'the image trail' that you see there with your hand, to the binoculars – and your scope, if you find it helpful. It's supposed to help image movement that someone might miss on first glance. I haven't tested in night conditions yet, but I have made myself dizzy when wearing it for a while.”

“So use with caution?” Bucky asked, as Howard moved to pick up the metal piece he had been hammering. Bucky immediately took it from him, not just because he was already positioned in front of the piece, but also it looked a little heavier and unwieldy.

“Yeah,” Howard answered, and gestured for him to follow him out of the tent.

Bucky followed, and as soon as he emerged from the tent, he could see why Howard might have possibly made himself dizzy. Every single person walking around, or even moving ever so slightly where they were, left a sort of ghostly image of their previous movement. He could feel himself try to focus on every single person at once – half in fascination at what he was seeing, half in just trying to make sense of what the mask was doing.

Fortunately, training and experience as a sniper allowed him to block it out extraneous movement as he focused on Howard. Just keeping both eyes on the inventor's back as he followed him to the repairs being made to the perimeter gun that had been jammed yesterday, helped eliminate the dizziness.

“You okay, Barnes?” Howard called back, turning slightly back towards him.

“Yeah,” he answered. “Focusing on one person at a time helps.”

As they got closer, Bucky noticed that the MI6 engineer, Quincy Meigs, was crouching at the base, talking with someone whose legs were the only things seen sticking out of the lower portion of the hull that had been removed. He could reasonably guess that David was the one standing on the inside of the gun well, repairing something within it. Strangely though, Emily was there, and she was crouched, her hand stuck somewhere up the hull, seemingly holding onto something. Even stranger was that Shostakov was there as well, holding onto the outer hull, that had been leaned towards him.

“Mr. Stark, I don't believe Lieutenant Shostakov has been cleared to work on this,” the MP following the two of them stated.

“Eh,” Howard dismissively stated, waving his hand in a slightly careless fashion. “He's holding onto the hull. He can't see what's inside, so it's fine. You're welcome to go ask Philips if he's okay with it though.”

“Sir, you know I can't—”

“For Pete's sake, I don't think Barnes is going to instigate a fight with the man,” Howard stated, stopping at the foot of the tall and over-sized machine gun. Bucky plunked the metal piece down onto the ground, seeing both Emily and the MI6 engineer giving him and Howard mild looks. Shostakov was giving him a rather curious look, due to the mask.

“Shoo, go on,” Howard said, gesturing with his hands. “Go get permission, if you're so hell bent on keeping to the rules. Or else I'm going to put you to work as well.”

The MP left, shaking his head slightly, just as the slightly muffled greeting of David echoed out from within the gun, saying, “Hello, Bucky. Is the piece done yet, Mr. Stark?”

“Yes,” Howard answered. “It's ready, but why is lovely Emily here?”

“I have small enough hands, Mr. Stark,” Emily answered, grinning. “David needed someone to hold the washers between the pivoting gimbals.”

“Oh. Well, I supposed that's kind of important,” Howard stated, scratching the back of his head in a slightly sheepish manner. “Don't you dare break her hand, David.”

The sigh of exasperation was quite audible from the inside, as Emily laughed a little, saying, “It won't happen, Mr. Stark. My father was a mechanic, and taught me what to and not do when things are being repaired.”

It looked as if Howard was about to engage in a lengthy – and most likely flirtatious, in Bucky's opinion – discussion with Emily, but it was Meigs who managed to bring the inventor's focus back onto the repairs. As Howard, Meigs, and David discussed about the metal piece and the procedure to go about putting it into the area where it was needed, Bucky took the opportunity to approach the Soviet platoon leader.

“< _Lieutenant Shostakov._ >” he greeted in a neutral tone.

“< _Sergeant Barnes._ >” the man answered, nodding. “< _It is good to see that you have not been severely punished by your superiors. There are more than a few men within Colonel Rostov's command who believe your words ring truer than the lies they had fed us through the years._ >”

Bucky stared at the Soviet soldier in disbelief for a moment, managing to utter a simple, baffled, “< _What?_ >”

“< _Do not mark my words as solidarity with your plight, Sergeant Barnes._ >” Shostakov stated. “< _You Americans can not presume to understand what we have gone through. We just find your words truer than some of the words spoken by our leaders. That is all._ >”

“< _So... you think what I said to Colonel Rostov is like a gust of wind to clear the smoke from too many fires burning?_ >” Bucky asked.

Shostakov seemed to consider his words for a few moments before nodding once. “< _Adequate enough. However, I do have to ask: are your eyes supposed to glow through that ridiculous mask you are wearing? Is this one of the great inventor Stark's inventions?_ >”

“< _Pardon me._ >” Bucky said, and immediately turned around, lifting the mask from his face, while asking Howard, “Stark, is this thing supposed to make my eyes _glow_?”

“Uh, to someone looking through from the other side, yes,” Howard answered. “Lenses and the materials they're coated with create that effect. Could you and Shostakov there tip the hull over a little more?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, pulling the mask down over his eyes as he relayed the request to the Soviet soldier.

Together, the two of them braced the hull and carefully tipped it over some more until it was almost half-way tilted towards the ground. Because it was so heavy, it required both of them to brace and hold it there so that Howard and the others could maneuver the metal piece into the correct area and begin to hammer it into place. Emily remained where she was, watching them, but she had pulled her hand out of the area she had been holding onto as soon as the hammering begun.

Under Howard's careful supervision, Emily returned her hand to hold down the small pieces as the three engineers began to tighten the various screws and other knickknacks within. Bucky was slightly curious as to what exactly the engineers were doing, but he knew not to ask questions unless he was a part of the repair team.

It had been how things got done in the Brooklyn Shipyards. He had been one of the people that guided and help set the large iron truss segments for the ships' hulls into the correct area for the welders. Everything, including where and how they were supposed to set the pieces had been dictated by the foreman on shift, or lead engineer—

“< _Your guards seem to like to take long breaks from their shifts._ >” Shostakov's comment from where he was standing behind him shook Bucky out of his thoughts of his days working in the Shipyards.

“< _Pardon?_ >” he asked, glancing slightly back. A moment later, the platoon leader shifted the weight of the heavy gun hull and gestured towards the north perimeter.

Bucky frowned ever so slightly as he followed the gesture, while hearing Shostakov say “< _That man has been sitting at the tree for the past half-hour. Perhaps he has fallen asleep? Perhaps the guard following you should be following him—_ >”

“Hey Stark,” Bucky said, interrupting whatever else Shostakov was going to say, “how sensitive to movement are the lenses you have on this thing?”

“You should be able to see a frightened mouse breathe as it scurries away,” came the tinny, echoed voice of Howard.

Bucky looked back up towards the north perimeter. It was slightly difficult to tell who the MP was, but he thought it was the MP who had been assigned to guard Marta in the morning. He had caught a glimpse of her early in the morning, sitting where the two of them had sat yesterday, staring out into the valley below—

The MP, Corporal Reed, was not moving... much less breathing—

“Grenade!” someone suddenly yelled.

~~~

“Peggy, would you please wait out here?”

She gave Steve a puzzled look but before she could ask why, he said, “I'd rather you not see this, Peggy. At least not unless the passage is truly here.”

There had been a time where she would have argued that she had seen dead bodies before, even though it had always a gruesome sight. Her initial outings as a field agent had always been stymied by men saying similar words as Steve had said to her. Since Steve had entered her life though, he had been ever supportive of her and the actions that she took, which was why this request was so unusual in itself.

“This was where the two of you were imprisoned, weren't you? The bodies of the soldiers are still there, aren't they?” she quietly asked. At Steve's silent nod, she then nodded in acquiescence to his request and stepped to the side.

“Thank you,” Steve whispered to her before slipping inside, partially drawing the heavy door close.

Peggy sighed and kept watch up and down the hall, listening to the sounds of the other Commandos in the other cells tapping on the stone walls. It sounded a little futile at first, but considering the architecture of the castle, it was the only logical place for a secret passage to be built.

Prisoners kept here would have either gone senseless with the want to escape, taking the way out through the door, and would not have considered the possibility of a hidden passage. If HYDRA was investing considerable amount of time cultivating a sleeper agent to be put within the ranks of the SSR, deception by visualization would have been among their first weapon.

Making Marta look almost like Lorraine would have worked, except Peggy suspected that HYDRA had not yet completed training on the woman, or finished transforming her into Lorraine yet. SSR deployment and intervention had most likely halted that. Yet, there were so much information, so many unknowns, and so many things that she needed proof of.

What she had of the Kronas and Soviet psychological information was not enough to prove that HYDRA was working with the Soviets, or had even infiltrated at least a part of the Soviet front here. She was willing to give the benefit of the doubt that not all of the Soviets were working with HYDRA, and that there was only an offshoot few who were.

As she continued to listen to the Commandos go about searching for any signs, she heard the sounds of Steve tapping his shield against the walls. Despite herself, her curiosity got the better of her – she took a half-step out from the adjacent wall to the entrance that she was standing against.

Peeking in through the slit of the half-way closed door, she knew that it was a little unsettling, even to herself, that she was used to seeing dead bodies. The closest body of the HYDRA soldier to her had been stripped of his shirt, and had a chain bound several times around his neck. The soldier's neck looked to have been wrenched by the chain until it snapped. This soldier had most likely been the one that Bucky had stripped for clothing – or at least the shirt that she had seen him wearing when he had arrived at camp.

There was another body lying face down beyond the one she could see, further in the room. It was slightly difficult to tell, but it looked as if the lower half of his body had been stripped—no. The HYDRA soldier's trousers were pooled at his ankles. Realization and horror suddenly gripped Peggy as she recalled Steve's debrief. It was a terrible thing to think about what might have happened—

“I think we found something!” Pinkerton and DumDum's shouts from the cell next door snapped her out of her awful thoughts.

Peggy immediately pulled away from where she was as she heard Steve approach. She schooled her expression to her usual business-like manner as she entered the cell, with Falsworth, Steve, and the other Commandos searching the other cells entering as well. She was not going to ask Steve what else had happened in that cell, and especially not Bucky – neither of them needed to live through whatever had happened when they had been held here, again.

~~~

Bucky hoarsely coughed, smelling smoke and feeling agonizing pain lancing throughout his body. Somewhere near him was the crackling pop of something burning, and as he rapidly shot up to a wakeful state and blinked, involuntary tears formed in his eyes. Hazy, black smoke surrounded him as he felt an enormous weight splayed across his chest on down.

He looked down, blinking away as much of the tears as he could, only to see that he was pinned to the ground. A half-broken portion of the hull of the perimeter gun's casing was on top of him. He glanced over to his left, the portion of the case was also apparently on top of the unconscious Shostakov as well. Squirming slightly, he couldn't immediately feel any broken bones apart from the acute stabs of pain coming from the hull that was slowly crushing him to death.

His arms were still able to be moved as he slowly tried to push the hull away from him. It took an excruciating amount of strength, but as he continued to push, he finally freed enough room to bring his hands up to brace and push. Grunting with one last heave, Bucky finally shoved the hull off and to the side.

Despite the pain he was in, it was slowly fading as he forced himself to scramble up, touching the side of Shostakov's neck. He could feel a pulse, but movement out of the corner of his eyes had him looking back up to fuzzily see David and an MP approaching—

Bucky saw the motion of the attack's after image a split-second before it actually happened. He hadn't even gotten half way up from where he had been when _something_ struck the MP on the back. The MP stumbled forward, blood immediately bubbling out of his mouth, just as Bucky reached the MP and saw yet another after image to the right corner of his approach—

Dodging to the left, he thought he felt the ghostly whisper of a blade, or something sharp scrape across the air where his head had been. He could not be gentle, as he immediately slammed into David, partially tucking the young man into him as the two of them fell to the ground, rolling away. Bucky took the fall hard, as he rolled once on the ground and stopped, pinning the engineer beneath him.

For just one moment, time seemed to freeze as he stared down at David's wide and mesmerizing grey eyes. A small fluttering sensation blossomed in his stomach for an instant. It was like and unlike the same strange feeling that he sometimes got whenever he met Steve's eyes – except David was not Steve.

That moment passed as Bucky's eyes immediately focused on a sidearm that was just a couple of inches away from David's head. Snatching the gun up, he glanced to his right—another after image—there! Firing once, twice, he thought he saw the attacker move. It was only with his second shot that he forced the attacker to stumble and fall backwards, clearly creating an imprint of a body on the ground in an attempt to dodge the bullet.

However, even as he was able to move as he was, the grenade exploding wherever it had landed near the perimeter gun, a bout of dizziness suddenly enveloped him. He fought past it, shaking his head slightly as he blinked, but it was too late. That momentary pause had given the attacker enough time to recover and scramble up. The movement was clearly seen through the dirt flying whichever way, and footsteps that were briefly left before they too, disappeared.

“Go! I'll help the injured and let Colonel Philips know!” David's words to him was enough to get him to refocus.

“Thanks!” he said, as he scrambled off of the engineer, eyes already refocusing through the mask towards the area where he had last seen the attacker—there!

Running forward and through the smoke, he saw the brief after image of the seemingly invisible attacker before blinking wiped it away again. Helping one of the MPs up, Bucky continued to move towards where he had last seen the after image of the attacker.

A few moments later, the location of the attacker was quite visible this time around, as the attacker suddenly took off on one of the two stolen HYDRA motorcycles. Bucky raced to the other one, not even bothering to shoot as the escaping attacker on the motorcycle seemingly melted even the motorcycle into whatever kind of device it had to make it invisible.

He gunned the motorcycle forward, zooming off towards the last direction that he had seen the attacker head towards. It was extremely difficult to tell, even more so with the speed he was pouring into the motorcycle, but the snap of the branches, along with the spray of dirt and brambles, was the only way he could follow. He didn't dare shoot though – it would be futile to hit something that he could not see, and would waste bullets.

He had one pistol on him and nothing else; and the direction that the fleeing attacker was headed towards, was the HYDRA facility. Bucky knew that he had to find some way to stop the almost invisible attacker before any soldiers in the facility were alerted to the pursuit, or worse yet, alert HYDRA that Steve and the others were already there.

* * *

“You smell that? Pinkerton asked, as he and Morita continued to lead the way down through the dry but dark secret passage corridor.

“Gunpowder?” Peggy hazarded a guess. It was potent and pungent, but it was close to something similar that she had smelled before.

“Dynamite. Explosives,” DumDum stated. “Smelled the same kind of smell whenever Grandpa used go down deep into the mines of West Virginia. His clothes smelled like this whenever he showed up for dinnertime.”

“Dunne, stay here and let us know if anything comes down the corridor,” Peggy heard Steve order as she saw him glance around, his torch light showing nothing but the stone and dirt-packed walls of the corridor they were traversing through. “Don't fire unless it's absolutely necessary.”

“Got it, Cap,” the Commando stated.

They all continued on, minus the relay person left behind, and soon, entered a rather large and dark chamber. Torch lights panned all around, but it was Morita's torch and his rather audible cursing that found the source of the smell. Every other torch, including Peggy's immediately pointed to the same area, and her eyes widened at what exactly was piled from wall to wall a few meters to their left.

Boxes on boxes of dynamite, along with actual barrels of gunpowder, and tins marked with different types of mines were lined against the wall.

However, that was not all that caught Peggy's attention as the partial reflection of the torch lights on the darkened tins faintly illuminated what looked to be an entrance way to another room. She approached it, taking Steve and some of the Commandos' attention away from the ridiculous pile of explosives. Steve slipped in front of her before she could get to the door through, taking point and leading them through.

Inside, was a room that was clear of any sort of explosives, but had a desk with a lamp and a few filing cabinets in one corner. A black, cloth-like thing was hanging from a coat stand next to the desk. The smell of gunpowder and explosives was much less, but there was a seemingly rank smell of blood and other things. The other side had what looked to be a surgery table of sorts, along with a stand and a cart full of medical instruments. This looked to be someone's office and surgery room at the same time.

“What the devil?” she heard Falsworth whisper as he entered behind her.

Peggy watched as Steve stepped over to the coat stand and reached out to touch the black cloth. Though her torch was not directly shining on Steve, there was just enough light reflecting off of his shield for her to see him frown ever so slightly. He didn't say a word though, and dropped the piece cloth in his hands back down, stepping away as he continued to pan his torch all over the place.

“There's another room,” Steve quietly stated a few moments later, as his torch panned over to yet another entrance way.

The torch lights from the other Commandos waved around the room, showing other horrors. Peggy didn't follow him, as she went to the desk, saying, “Dernier and Pinkerton, look through those filing cabinets over there and see if there are any documents stored there. I'll also need to know what language.”

“Ma'am,” the two Commandos acknowledged as she saw out of the corner of her eyes, Jones and Morita flank Steve as Steve entered the other room. Falsworth and DumDum had made their way to the surgery table and were shining their torches all around the table and instruments.

She began yanking the drawers within the desk open, but it seemed as if each area had not ever been used by whomever had been occupying the desk. Dust and blank sheets of papers occupied most of the drawers, giving the illusion that whomever had used the desk was quite a prolific writer. However, a rather large banging sound behind her caused her to turn for a moment, only to see Dernier wincing ever so slightly at the noise. He also silently indicated that he had broken into the locked third drawer within the filing cabinet, while all of the others looked to have been pulled out quite easily.

Peggy frowned slightly as she came over from the desk and panned her torch over the open drawer. It would have been normal to have either the top or bottom most drawer locked, but the middle one... was strange. Handing the torch over, she pushed her rifle back slightly. Pinkerton had also crowded around the other side of the open drawer, and shined all three torches into the drawer.

Peggy began to flip through the pages; everything was blank except for one thing. She pulled the thin folder nested deep within the multitude of blank papers and placed it on top of the open drawer. Opening the folder, her eyes immediately widened ever so slightly at what she read—

“Oh, God,” Falsworth's echoed exclamation from further within the room that Steve and the other Commandos had decided to explore, startled her and the other two Commandos. She looked up to see that neither the officer or DumDum were at the surgery table or its instruments anymore, which meant that neither had found anything of great interest to report on.

Tucking the folder into the satchel she carried, she indicated with a silent nod of her head that they too, should go see what had caused the exclamation. The third room that Steve had entered was empty, except that the faint, yellowish light that spilled from the fourth room and into this one illuminated the fact that there were six cells – three each on either side of the room. All were empty, but there was some evidence that they had been occupied.

“Peggy, don't—” DumDum began, holding up a hand to wave her away, as she and the other Commandos stepped into the fourth and final room.

It was too late though, as she took a few steps in, gaping with utter horror and revulsion at the sight that greeted her. It was not the stench of decaying bodies that got to her, but the fact that there were four dead women occupying four of the six cells in here, who looked to have been shot multiple times. It looked as if their faces had been mutilated as well—

Steve's sudden surprised grunt and the sound of him being hit by _something_ really hard drew all of their attention away from two of the three cells on their right that were occupied by the dead bodies. Steve flying by all of them and slamming into the far wall hard enough to stun him for a few moments was the next thing that alerted them to an incoming attack.

“Steve!” was all that Peggy was able to cry out in surprise, before chaos broke loose among the rest of the Commandos.

~~~

“Steve!”

There were now two things Bucky never wanted to ever hear again; the first being Steve howling in pain, and the second now being Peggy's anguished cries. Both wrenched at him, driving him to see red anger in his eyes. Yet, it was also Peggy's cry of Steve's name that led him racing down the dark corridor.

Pungent smells assaulted his nose as he stumbled over a body. The lenses over Stark's mask that he wore showing him the faint outline of Dunne, dead with his neck wrenched at an unnatural angle.

Bucky couldn't linger as he found his footing again and continued to race down the corridor. He entered the first room and heard the echoes of something hitting stone walls, along with the sounds of metal rattling around. The sounds of Steve's shield bouncing around accompanied some of the noise, and he continued into the second and through the third room.

Bursting out into the fourth and final room, faintly illuminated by the weak lights strung up along the walls, he saw Steve slam into the ground. The brief after image of the invisible attacker he had followed to the castle accompanied the fall, and Bucky charged in.

Ramming himself shoulder-first up and into the invisible attacker, Bucky heard the faint 'oof' coming from the attacker, before hearing the attacker crunch into the far wall. “Get them free, Steve!” he shouted. He had briefly taken in the room during his charge and had seen that somehow, the rest of the surviving Commandos, along with Peggy, had all been herded into a locked cell. They had been and still were trying to get free.

“Where is he?!” Steve shouted, the clatter of his shield being picked up off the ground jangled loudly around the room.

The clear _snickt_ of a combat knife being withdrawn was the only warning Bucky got as the after image of the attacker's left arm burned into his eyes. He barely ducked out of the way as he felt the blade sing across where his right ear used to be. The scrape of the tip of the blade against the gun he had managed to bring up gave him an idea of where the attacker was positioned.

Whether it was luck, the strange lenses on the mask, or a combination of both, Bucky managed wrench and clamp his left hand onto the wrist of the attacker. The attacker's wrist was thinner than he anticipated. But before that thought could even fully sink into him, he wrenched his right hand with the gun back just far enough to not have his right wrist break with the snap-kick from the attacker.

The gun flew from his hand as he pulled and whirled around, landing a two-hit punch on the attacker, followed by a kick that connected into the attacker's stomach. He only caught the after image of the attacker flying away before the quite visible outline of arms, legs, and a body briefly indented the bars of a cell. Yet that still seemingly did not—

“No! Steve, don't—” Bucky yelled, just as the flash of silver flew through the air, as he saw the after image of the attacker wrench out of the brief hold against the bars of the cells.

It was too late, as the attacker snatched Steve's shield before it could hit. It melted into invisibility; the device or whatever it was that caused the attacker to be invisible taking it in – just like it had with the motorcycle.

Bucky warily looked around, as he saw Steve pause where he was, wiping blood still trickling down from his nose. The Commandos, and even Peggy had their weapons out, but without being able to clearly see the attacker, none of them wanted to risk shooting and hitting either him or Steve.

“Can you see him, Bucky?” Steve asked, raising his fists up in a defensive boxing stance.

“Not anymore,” he answered, looking to his left and right, trying not to focus on just how much the after images of the others through Stark's mask was making him dizzy. He had been all right focusing on one person among many, but with the combination of the grenade, the pursuit across the forests, and now a fist fight, he felt incredibly awful. “Give—”

Stars and black spots exploded across his eyes as an agonizing jolt of pain lanced up from his jaw and into his head. He flew up and back, landing hard on the floor, as the spots running across his eyes blinked in in synchronous movement. Bucky coughed, though that only caused a multitude of pain to lance across his body, as he heard the crunch of flesh hitting shield, a couple of spits of gunfire from one or two of the Commandos firing into the air—

Blearily blinking as he tried to force the pain, the dizziness, and his sluggish movements aside, he thought he saw the bullets from Peggy and the others being blocked and thumping onto the ground. Steve tried to sweep his kick low, towards the area where they thought the attacker was, but missed. He thought he saw the after image of the attacker once again, this time to the left of where Steve was; back completely exposed to him.

Bucky groped for the gun the attacker had kicked out of his hand. It was lying a few inches from his fingertips...

_Breathe._

_Pause._

_Heartbeat—fire—fire—fire—fire—_

Bucky didn't stop firing his weapon until there was nothing left in the clip and chamber. Each successive bullet after the first lucky one found the source of the attacker's invisibility and disabled it, punched into the attacker. It didn't even register with him until well after he had emptied his gun that the attacker had been Marta, until he had stumbled up and approached, empty gun still held up and pointed at her body lying within the rapidly growing pool of blood.

“—ky. Bucky? Sergeant Barnes?”

He nearly jumped as he blinked even more rapidly, wondering what the hell had happened to him as he looked over to his right to see Steve half-way in reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. He lowered his empty gun. Belatedly, he realized that that was the first time that Steve had ever used his rank to call him to attention.

However, that thought rapidly disappeared as he saw that the other Commandos and Peggy had been freed in the interim of whatever the hell had happened to him. It was only after his eyes had slid over Falsworth, or more specifically to what was behind Falsworth in the other cells that a chilling horror enveloped him.

The other cells were occupied by dead bodies of women who looked to have been riddled with bullets – just like what he had done to Marta—

“Goddamn, even my cat didn't fight as viciously as she did,” DumDum whispered before Bucky could let the hideous realization of what he had done show on his face. “Can't believe she convinced us of her story. Just think if we would have brought her back to London with us.”

“It was never going to happen,” Peggy stated, crouching down and reaching out for the box-like thing that had been strapped to Marta's belt. “Colonel Philips had called in for a transport to bring her to Paris—”

“Um, here, let me get that for you, Agent Carter,” Falsworth stated, snatching up ruined box-like thing before Peggy could get to it.

“I thought she was a schoolteacher?” Morita questioned.

“Governess,” Peggy stated.

Bucky felt Steve's hand on his shoulder, squeezing it briefly. It seemed that all of the attention had been drawn away from him and was now focused on Peggy. In the back of his mind, knew what she was doing and why. While he was grateful for what she was doing, he couldn't help but feel incredibly sick as he tore Howard's experimental mask off of his face. It didn't do anything to alleviate the awful churning feeling he felt in his stomach.

“Though that story was most likely a lie that we all brought into,” Peggy continued to say, standing up at the same time Falsworth did as well. “There's no one to blame in this. We were all deceived by her.”

“Then what was she, Peggy?” Steve finally asked, as Bucky glanced over at him, with the weight of his hand still on his shoulder.

He looked back over to Peggy and saw her shake her head. “I don't know,” she admitted. “It's still too early to tell, but there was a document we found in the second room. It's encrypted, but I think it may tell us what she really was. At the moment, I have to say that she was a sleeper agent.”

“A what?” Jones asked, frowning.

“An agent who was supposed to have been easily able to replace the target they were made to look like,” Bucky quietly and hoarsely spoke up. “Whatever her orders were, she was supposed to function like Alistair Brooke, except in a greater capacity. Isn't that why she looks like Lorraine?”

Silence greeted his words as the rest of the Commandos took a moment to absorb the statement. The Commandos and Steve had not been present during the chaos that Alistair Brooke had caused, as Bucky had been the one to stay behind as the relay. Nevertheless, the briefing that they had received from Philips after the incident had unsettled all of them – Bucky included. Figuring out Marta's possible true purpose before she had done whatever she was trying to do in the camp and here was even more unsettling.

“It's difficult to believe that HYDRA got as far as they did with such a thing, without us picking it up until now,” Peggy quietly stated, confirming his conclusion.

“Mighty good thing that there are many explosives down there, then,” Falsworth muttered.

“Let's go,” Steve stated with finality. “We blow this entire place up, and make sure that HYDRA is never able to pick up the pieces from this place ever again.”

“Roger that, Cap.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky with Howard's weird lenses on a domino mask was something that I couldn't not put in the story - especially not with the opportunity presenting itself like this. I always found that type of mask to be slightly silly on him, since I've long associated it with Zorro before I even began to read the Captain America comics. But yeah, this chapter is my homage to the mask, and how Bucky uses everything around him to his advantage to make sure those he loves and cares about are protected - and how the Winter Soldier he will become, functions.
> 
> There is one more chapter after this - what was in that document Peggy found, and the epilogue.


	5. Epilogue: The Lines Like Dust

**Epilogue: The Lines Like Dust**

_Somewhere in London, a few days later..._

 

There was always a sense of finality whenever buttoning up a shirt. Whether it was representative of the end of a good or bad night's sleep, or the beginning of a possible end that Bucky had tried not to think about ever since the SSR field team had returned to London, something about slowly pushing the buttons through the eyelets caused that feeling to well up inside of him.

He usually didn't button up his shirts this slow though. He took care and time to make sure every single crease, fold, and even his cuffs and collar were sitting perfectly. Even when tucking in the shirt into his uniform's trouser, he made sure that nothing got wrinkled, and that it was sitting evenly across in the slightly bloused fold.

When he was done, Bucky then took up the uniform's jacket and carefully put it on. The ribbons that sat on the side were all lined up in a neat row. Everything that was polished had been polished to the fullest, just like his shoes had been as well. Even when he had first put on the uniform and felt incredibly proud of wearing such clothing, he had never felt prouder until now.

Bucky glanced at the mantel clock that tick-tocked its steady rhythm next to the mirror he had used to watch himself as he got dressed. It was still early in the morning, and the shift change at the SSR Headquarters would have already happened. No one would see him leave this particular building, especially from this particular apartment.

He glanced back at himself in the mirror, and while he would have normally smiled and felt cocky and confident, there was no such expression on his face this morning. Instead, he picked up his cover and placed it on his head, before staring at himself again.

Colonel Philips was going to make his decision today on whether or not he, Bucky, would be allowed to remain with the Commandos, SSR, and in the service. Today could possibly be the final day he would be allowed to proudly, and honorably wear the uniform.

Bucky took a deep breath, and slowly let it go as he turned and quietly made his way to the entrance to the bedroom. Pausing at the threshold, he glanced back for a moment, taking in the scene before his eyes. The side that he had occupied last night was neatly made up, but the bed's other occupant was still curled under the sheet, sound asleep. The occupant would most likely not be waking up for another hour or two. Bucky had already left a note behind – a simple 'thank you' that he hoped conveyed what he still could not say after all these months.

Turning back around, he continued through the kitchenette that had doubled as a small dining and living room, and quietly exited the apartment. Outside, the quietness of London at this hour of the morning was a thing to behold, as it sounded different from New York. Bucky began walking back towards the SSR Headquarters, taking his time and enjoying as much of the stroll as he could.

Philips had surprisingly ordered the Commandos to go on twenty-four hours of leave as soon as they had returned from their deployment to Estonia. Steve had been the one to volunteer to stay behind as the relay this time, and Bucky did not mind him for doing such a thing. His best friend rarely got personal time to spend with Peggy, and with the mandatory leave – along with Bucky not wanting to stay behind – it seemed like a good trade.

He had initially thought though that the twenty-four hours did not apply to him, but Philips had surprisingly granted him the leave – without a MP to shadow him either. At first, he had thought it a trick, before his thoughts had taken a darker turn; that Philips was supposedly giving him the option to desert, but that thought was quickly dashed. He would never desert; never cause his mother, sisters, or even Steve the pain of knowing that he had deserted his post.

Due to the leave being only twenty-four hours, the rest of the Commandos had not gone far, but Bucky had not wanted to take leave with them. They were his friends, but spending time drinking and playing cards with him like a prisoner on death row at the end of the leave did not sit well with him. Thus, he had slipped into the city, and had wandered wherever the Tube or his feet had carried him.

Nightfall had carried him to the particular door of a certain someone. He had been wordlessly let in with no questions asked. It had not been his intent to stay there over night, as he knew that it was just a cruel thing to do – to give a sliver of hope and take it away just as quickly. But one thing had led to another—

Bucky shook his head slightly as he blinked and found that he had arrived at the building that fronted the SSR Headquarters. Entering as he shoved every single thought about last night, along with his worry as to what Philips' decision would be to the side, he saw that there were a few people about. He was let in by the telephone operator on shift, who had thankfully remembered to confirm his identity as a security measure.

Making his way down to the main area, it was still relatively quiet, with a few of the night shift personnel still working, while a few day shift personnel had begun to trickle in. A few of the MPs standing guard and scattered about looked at him with surprise, and Bucky could only guess that it was because he was back early. It was no secret within the SSR that he was up for disciplinary action – not after what happened near Narva. Philips hadn't even tried to kill the rumors, and Bucky knew that it was because the SSR commander wanted to set a firm example.

“You're back early.”

Bucky turned around, nodding to Steve's words of surprise. He noted that even though Steve was dressed as impeccably as he was in the uniform, it looked as if his best friend was headed to a briefing with some brass. There was even a folder tucked under Steve's arm. Bucky wasn't aware that they even had higher ups awake and about so early in the morning.

“I didn't go with DumDum or the others,” he answered, deciding to keep the explanation simple and straight forward. “Didn't want to. Not after...” He paused, looking away for a moment before sighing, shaking his head slightly as he finished up with, “Not after what happened.”

“Bucky, you know none of them blame you. Even Peggy said that your actions were justified,” Steve answered.

“Doesn't matter,” he stated, shrugging slightly. “Wasn't good company anyways. I didn't want to ruin their mood.”

“Bucky...” Steve began, reaching out.

Bucky deliberately took a step back, but did not avert his eyes as he saw slight confusion and disappointment flash across Steve's eyes. The silence that hung between them was uncomfortable, but Bucky broke it a moment later, asking and pointing to the folder, “Early briefing?”

“Your evaluation report,” Steve quietly answered, frowning slightly. “Philips requested that it be turned in before you returned.”

“Oh,” he answered. Attempting to lighten the mood a little from the disappointment radiating from Steve, he said, “Well, you can pretend that you didn't see me. I can go stand in a corner and act like one of the MPs.”

“That's unnecessary, Sergeant,” Peggy's voice spoke up from behind Steve. Steve turned around and stepped slightly to the side, allowing both of them to see Peggy approaching, with a few folders tucked against an arm. “Good morning, Steve, and to you as well, Sergeant,” she stated in a kind but still professional tone.

“Morning,” Bucky answered at almost the same time Steve had greeted Peggy as well.

“If you would both follow me, I'm about to brief Colonel Philips on the final report of what was found in the HYDRA facility. Considering the trouble that both of you went through to retrieve intelligence about Kronas, I believe that both of your presences would be acceptable to Colonel Philips.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Bucky answered, with not a trace of sarcasm in his tone.

“Thank you, Peggy,” Steve said, nodding.

Together, they followed her through the main area and down the corridors until they got to Philips' office. Knocking on the door, they heard a faint 'enter' before Peggy opened the door. “Sir,” she began. “I believe Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes should be here for the briefing.”

Philips' look at both of them was a slightly shrewd look, but the SSR commander didn't say a word and only nodded. Bucky mentally sighed in relief as he entered after Steve, closing the door and taking a seat furthest away from Philips in the corner of the room. He saw Peggy pass the first folder to Philips who opened it. From where he was sitting, it looked like an autopsy report.

Dernier and DumDum had found some sheets in the surgery room and had wrapped up the body of Marta after Peggy had given the order to do so. Even Steve had been utterly shocked by the decision, until Peggy had pulled out the thin folder that she had found in the same room.

There had been a worried look on her face before she had then quietly pointed to the dent in the cell bars made when Bucky had kicked Marta into them. The silent statement she had made by those two gestures said it all: any other person, woman or man, would not have been able to move, much less throw Steve's shield after such a blow. Marta had, which made her extremely unusual.

“The chemical composition of her blood matches elements of the super-soldier serum that Dr. Erskine had developed,” Peggy bluntly began. “However, Dr. Hart compared it against Dr. Erskine's previous attempts at the formula and found it closer in composition to what the Red Skull injected himself with, than the final formula.”

“She didn't look like she was wearing a mask like the Skull,” Bucky quietly stated from where he was sitting. It need not be said that it had most likely been Zola who had done the experimentation and possible augmentation of Marta.

“Correct,” Peggy answered glancing at him for a moment before nodding. Wordlessly, she returned her attention to Philips and handed him another folder, saying, “The compartment that she carried on her was both an invisibility module, and contained the vials necessary for her to inject herself with so that her skin did not peel away like the Red Skull. Based on Dr. Hart and Howard's assessments, I can only conclude that the serum she was taking was a slight variant of the one in the Skull's blood. The mutilated faces of the women we saw down in the facility were most likely unsuccessful experiments.”

“Where is the body now, Carter?” Philips asked, scanning both reports in a quick manner.

“Cremated. Her ashes were scattered in the Thames last night,” Peggy answered.

“Good,” Philips answered. “And your final report?”

Bucky saw her hand over her last folder, but remained silent as Philips flipped through it. The wait was not long as the SSR commander paused half-way in scanning the report and looked back up, pinning her with a wordless stare. “Is Stark sure that they've all been scrubbed?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

Bucky caught Steve's slightly puzzled look over towards him, before returning his attention onto Peggy and Philips. “Sir?” Steve asked after a moment.

“Carter,” Philips stated, nodding for her to take the lead on briefing as he folded his hands over the open report, openly and deeply frowning.

“HYDRA had been working with elements of the Soviet forces, specifically with a group who had named themselves Tiamat. Tiamat is a Babylonian goddess of primordial chaos, usually depicted as a sea serpent.”

“How coincidental,” Bucky couldn't help but murmur, folding his hands in front of him and resting his arms across his lap as he didn't even bother to sit up straight anymore. He always hated it when his hunches proved to be correct, especially by Peggy.

“Unfortunately, the reports that the two of you brought back, along with what was found in that room did not identify any known markers or names of the leaders,” Peggy continued. “Only two were mentioned in the document: one as Баба Яга, and the other as: Коще́й. It looked as if Баба Яга was the one who trained them, and Коще́й was the handler. The rest were unnamed women, most likely the bodies that were kept in those cells, who had seemingly volunteered to be of service to their country.”

She paused for a moment, looking slightly worried as she said, “It's a bit of a reach. However, based on the information that we have, along with the fact that all of our lines going in and out of Headquarters had been tapped since before the whole Alistair Brooke incident happened, it was most likely that the facility was a prototype for producing sleeper agents.

“Brooke was most likely their contact point for siphoning and shipping out information before he was killed. They had detailed information on many senior personnel, most of them women – including myself. The women who volunteered for this task within Tiamat were most likely supposed to infiltrate the SSR, and other organizations once their transformation was complete.”

“Marta, or whomever she really was, was going to be the first, wasn't she?” Bucky quietly asked, noting just how pale Steve had become. “She was supposed to replace Lorraine.”

It wasn't that he himself was shocked by the news, but working with Peggy in the shadows had exposed him to a lot more brutally ugly things within the war than he cared to admit. There had been times where he had wondered just how Peggy was coping with such things, but it had not been his place to ask. She was not his girl – she was Steve's girl, and he had hoped that she found a sense of peace in the light of hope that Steve cast.

“Most likely,” Peggy nodded. “She wasn't ready when the two of you broke out. It seemed that her conditioning or training by this Баба Яга figure, was not complete.”

“But it doesn't make any sense,” Steve suddenly spoke up. There was clear anger in his tone, but he remained calm. “Why would Marta have gone back to stop us? If she was supposed to have been embedded like Brooke, wouldn't she have stayed instead? You said that a transport to Paris had been called for her, Peggy. Given that there had been guards left behind when Bucky and I escaped, HYDRA could have easily blown it up then before either we, or Marta got there?”

“I thought the same, Steve,” Peggy answered, nodding in agreement. “It seemed reckless for her to attempt to ambush and kill those at the camp but not follow up with it, when she had the clear advantage. It seemed even stranger that didn't make her escape when she could have easily done so. The only conclusion that I could draw is that perhaps when the Soviet forces began to push into the area, Баба Яга and Коще́й did not want their true work to be discovered. Thus, they broke their agreement with HYDRA, somehow gave orders to Marta, and fled – leaving us with what we have now.”

“So there's is the possibility that someone in the Soviet forces we worked with that could have passed on orders to Marta? Say Rostov or better yet, one of his adjutants, or maybe Shostakov?” Bucky questioned. “He was the one who pointed out that Corporal Reed was dead.”

“Possibly,” Peggy answered before Philips could direct his glare onto him.

Bucky had not intended to openly accuse their sort-of allies in the Estonia operation, but it was the only reasonable extrapolation that he could come up with. Rostov, his adjutants, and even the low-ranking platoon leader had all had access to the camp when Marta had been there. Any one of those men could have given some subtle hand signal that none in the SSR would have caught.

“However, it is only theory at this juncture,” Peggy continued. “There's no evidence that points to Colonel Rostov or any other soldier under his command passing along the message. The more reasonable explanation could very well lay in the fact that Marta had orders to deceive us, and when she discovered that the Howling Commandos were no longer in camp, she had to go back and carry out her other objectives.”

“Our objective is still to stop HYDRA and Schmidt,” Philips stated, as Bucky saw him close all three reports. “We'll keep an eye on the Soviets as well, but consider them no longer our problem to deal with. Normandy is secured and Operation Market Garden is due to start in a few weeks.”

Philips focused his attention on Steve, saying, “Captain, you and your men will be assisting the First Canadian Army in Operation Totalize. Briefing will be at 09:30.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve stated, but hesitated a moment later. “Sir, what of Sergeant Barnes?”

“Is that your report?” Philips asked, as Bucky saw him flick his eyes towards the folder still tucked under Steve's arm.

“Yes, sir,” Steve answered, handing the folder over.

“Both you and Agent Carter are dismissed. Sergeant Barnes, stay,” Philips stated.

“Sir,” Steve answered as crisply as Peggy did.

Bucky remained where he was, sitting hunched over as he nodded slightly at the two. There was nothing he could say or do to reassure Steve – everything was in Philips hands now. Even with a reassuring hand on his arm from Peggy, Steve still looked worried, but neither lingered in the office. The door closed a few moments later, enveloping both Bucky and Philips in silence.

It was only then that Bucky stood up and took the couple of steps to stand at attention in front of Philips's desk, keeping his eyes staring straight ahead. If he was going to be discharged from duty, he had at least enough honor left to face it like he was supposed to.

“You don't have a problem with this type of work, do you Sergeant?” Philips' unexpected question broke the uncomfortable silence, as he heard him slowly flip through Steve's report.

“Sir?” Bucky questioned, keeping his eye on a spot above Philips' head. “No, sir, I do not,” he answered after a moment, realizing what the SSR commander was referring to. Espionage and deception – two things that greatly clashed with Steve's sense of justice and righteousness.

“The lines between friend and foe are like dust, Sergeant,” Philips said, as Bucky heard him open the folder and rifle through the pages. “The actions you took to find out more about the sleeper agent, and then kill her in cold blood; are you willing to do so again?”

Bucky blinked, and couldn't help but frown as he flicked his eyes down at Philips. His commander was looking up at him with an expectant look. “I regret putting that many bullets into her, when only two or three would have sufficed, sir,” he stated. “However, I do not regret killing her.”

“You're an assassin, Barnes,” Philips stated quite bluntly. “Regardless of how you or others want to call it, you are an assassin. HYDRA has torn a hole within the SSR with Alistair Brooke and now this sleeper agent production facility. While Captain America and the 107th can protect that hole until it is repaired, I need someone with the skills to strike at HYDRA where they least expect it, _and_ without drawing attention to himself. A ghost among the living.”

“Sir,” Bucky began, but paused as the weight of Philips' words sunk into him. “Is this on top of all of my duties as a member of the Howling Commandos, or an independent reassignment?”

“You will take leave whenever your fellow Commandos are taking leave,” Philips stated. “During your leave, you will be carrying out these assassination missions. If circumstances necessitate it, you will stay at Headquarters whenever I deem it so during the leave granted to the rest of the Commandos. Under no circumstances are you to interfere with Lorraine and her duties anymore.

“You report directly to me, similar to what Agent Carter is doing, but you _will_ maintain your cover within the Commandos – that is, you are still Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, sniper. You're still allowed to gather and pass on information to Agent Carter, but you are not to breathe a word of this assignment to either her, Captain Rogers, or anyone else. Those are the conditions for your continued service within this unit.”

“And if I don't accept them, sir?” Bucky quietly asked.

“Then the two MPs waiting outside will immediately escort you out,” Philips stated. “You will not be given a dishonorable discharge, Sergeant. Pacific Command is willing to take you, if you want to continue to serve as a sniper.”

Bucky remained silent for a few long moments. He could remain, continue to serve, but it would be half a world away from Steve. He had made a promise, and he knew that his answer was an emphatic 'yes' to accept the conditions that Philips had laid down. He would sacrifice it all to make sure that his and Steve's childhood promise was kept.

“I accept the conditions to remain in the Commandos and the SSR, Colonel Philips,” he stated without hesitation.

_...until the end of the line._

_* * *_

_Somewhere in the Soviet Union..._

 

“Shostakov, how was your evaluation?”

The agent who had taken an undercover duty assignment within the Soviet forces in the Estonian front glared at the jovial yet shrewd-looking man with greying, balding hair. “< _Do have a care not to speak in that tongue when not necessary, Ivchenko._ >” Shostakov growled in Russian.

“< _My apologies, Agent Shosatkov._ >” Ivchenko stated, nodding slightly in a half-sincere apology.

“< _Your agent, the girl code-named Marta_ _Wieczorek_ _, had conflicting objectives to perform. Therefore, the Americans have her body and were nearly successful in discovering our true purpose. Be sure that your next agent under this new conditioning program does not._ >” Shostakov stated.

“< _I made sure that Captain America and his people of the SSR were led astray with the breadcrumbs that I had left behind for paperwork, Agent Shostakov._ >” Ivchenko stated in a genial tone. “< _I may, however, have found another candidate of interest, if you are willing to revisit the concept of the Wolf Spider Program._ >”

“< _The Black Widow Program should suffice. These Westerners and their concept of equality only holds to the equality of men. They know not of the power that women hold._ >” Shostakov said, before nodding in acknowledgment to a tall, striking-looking woman with blonde hair and light eyes, who had walked out of the shadows behind Ivchenko.

“< _The chance to show them the Motherland's true strength, is something that I have been waiting for._ >” the woman stated, smiling and accepting the rare compliment from Shostakov. “< _However, Dr. Ivchenko does have a point about his potential candidate. Given the loss of the weapon in Estonia, this candidate – if we can recruit and turn him – may be a fine addition to Leviathan._ >”

“< _Surely not Captain America himself?_ >” Shostakov scoffed.

Ivchenko merely smiled and gestured for the woman to speak. “< _I observed Captain America and his side-kick, the one you know as Sergeant Barnes while they were held captive. Dr. Ivchenko's new conditioning technique was proven to be a success with the supposed whipping that Sergeant Barnes endured, while Captain America himself watched. Both thought it happening. What I had not expected was the method in which Sergeant Barnes freed himself from captivity._ >”

“< _How did they not see you?_ >” Shostakov asked, frowning slightly. “< _I was told only one invisibility module was produced, and that was given to Marta._ >”

“< _Dr. Ivchenko's new technique and mind manipulation during the 'whipping' enabled the two to not see me while I stood in the corner of their cell, silently observing them._ >” the woman explained. “< _Sergeant Barnes tore the irons from the walls and killed all four guards without any additional injury that he had already sustained. It is likely that he had been experimented upon in a more advance fashion by this Dr. Zola, whom had reassured that his formula that we gave to Marta would work._ >”

Shostakov was silent for a few moments before narrowing his eyes ever so slightly. “< _It would explain the unusual swiftness and accuracy in which he sniped enemies at Kronas. But, his recruitment would be an issue with our comrade-commanders – specifically with Rostov. However, I do believe that you are right – the benefit of potentially having our own super-soldier outweigh whatever political issues it may cause._ >”

“< _Excellent._ >” the woman stated, nodding curtly. “< _I shall draw up a plan of ambush—_ >”

“< _No._ >” Shostakov stated, shaking his head slightly. “< _Sergeant Barnes will not go quietly if forced. We must approach this from another front. Prepare to travel to America – specifically to New York City. We must approach this from the old Motherland's perspective, as it is likely that he is of relation to a member of the old dynasty. His mother tongue's accent gives it away._ >

“Then what shall be my name there, while I look for Sergeant Barnes' family and befriend them?” the woman asked in perfect English that had a hint of a mid-Western accent.

Shostakov glanced over towards Ivchenko, who merely smiled before saying, “How about: Dottie Underwood.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

FINI

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 05 April 2019 – and that's it for the story! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you all for reading, leaving kudos, and comments. If you are reading this in series order, the final adventure fic of Steve and Bucky in this particular series is the next fic, **The Paths We Take**.
> 
> Some final notes for those who have not read the fic as a part of the series: first, Operation Totalize took place near Normandy between August 8th and 9th in 1944, with the First Canadian Army emerging victorious. I didn't follow the route of the comics and have Steve and Bucky participate in Normandy, because they were busy fighting HYDRA.
> 
> Secondly, Dr. Ivchenko and Dottie Underwood are the same as their characters featured in the Agent Carter TV series. We saw a flashback of Ivchenko agreeing to work for Leviathan/HYDRA under duress of being shot by code-named agent: Dottie Underwood. I mentally placed that flashback scene somewhere in the beginning of 1944.
> 
> Thirdly, the fates of David Brewster and Emily Hattersfield were described by Bucky in the epilogue of Story 3: **Winter's Ghost**. To summarize, they were killed by the Winter Soldier in 1947 after they inadvertently ran afoul of a mission he was in the middle of executing. Both had recognized the Winter Soldier for who he had been: Bucky.
> 
> Fourth, Philips was written as a combination of Coulson and Fury, a prototype of both of them. Given the circumstances, I didn't think that he would be heading up a powerful intelligence organization, unless he knew exactly where and how he wanted to put his chess pieces in this war against HYDRA. Peggy can be considered his right hand, while Bucky is his left (after that coercion to stay – and Bucky's own self-destructive tendencies (and unhealthy devotion) to keep his promise to Steve, which Philips expertly manipulated to get what he wanted).
> 
> Finally, Peggy continued to work for the SSR (per the Agent Carter TV series), and eventually founded SHIELD with Howard Stark and Chester Philips. During her career in SHIELD, she skirted across many of the Winter Soldier missions in Europe, eventually almost directly clashing against him during the events of **Winter's Ghost**. Her fate, along with Steve, Howard, and the eventual unmasking/reconditioning of the Winter Soldier follow the MCU.
> 
> Again, thank you for reading, and I hope to see you in a brand-new Captain America fic (or series). Cheers!


End file.
